There were 110,730 residential property sales in July, HMRC has reported.

This was up on June’s figure of 109,980 and ahead of last July’s figure of 98,680.

However, for baffling reasons that only economists understand, HMRC prefers to headline its “seasonally adjusted” statistics rather than its “actuals”.

It says there were 101,190 “seasonally adjusted” residential housing transactions in July.

This was down 1.3% on June’s figure, but 13.5% higher than in July last year.