Residential property sales remained above the 1m mark in the UK last year despite the political uncertainty, HMRC figures suggest.
Provisional HMRC property transaction data for December suggests sales last month were up 11.2% annually to 109,850 on a non-adjusted basis.
This took the total number of sales for 2019 to 1,180,610, down 0.91% from 2018 when 1,191,460 were recorded.
The sales data was up 6.8% annually and 6.2% monthly on a seasonally adjusted basis to 104,670 in December – the highest for the month in four years – and 1,180,360 for the whole of 2019.
Mike Scott, chief property analyst for Yopa, said: “The seasonally adjusted figure of 104,670 homes sold in December was the highest since December 2015, four years earlier.
“The total number of homes sold in the whole of 2019 was 1.18m, only fractionally down on 2018’s figure of 1.19m.
“These figures confirm other data showing a strong end to the year in the housing market, and setting us up for an even stronger start to 2020 now that the political uncertainty of Brexit and a hung Parliament has been lifted, at least for the time being.
“We expect that the number of houses sold this year will be over 1.2m, higher than in either of the previous two years.”
Good news! However there is a warning shot for the “average” estate agent here. If there are expected to be say 1.2m sales this year, and there are about 22,000 estate agencies, then that statistically gives each agent and average of 54 of sales a year. Average house price £236,000 at an average (pathetic) fee of say 1.3% = £165,672 average annual revenue per branch. And that’s an AVERAGE! Would you be happy with that? Try at least doubling that and maybe you have a half decent business. Not spectacular but possibly acceptable. Are you average, or do you employ prospecting systems, engaging marketing, effective listing and negotiation strategies and charge a proper fee of around 2%? How about aiming for a 20% improvement in each of the above and you’ve just doubled your turnover and more than doubled your profits. Is 2020 going to be your average year? Or are you going to take advantage of the opportunities string you in the face? (and by the way, if market turnover rises by say 20% then you can’t take the credit for a 20% increase in revenues!). What’s your plan? Have a great day.
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Interesting that the figure for total residential transactions has stayed firm at c. 1.2m for the past six years yet many agents are apparently still waiting for the market to return. To what? Very unlikely levels will get back to the late 80s stats BUT fees will no doubt continue to erode unless people start listening to people like Richard Rawlings. In 2020, the focus has to be on increasing fees.
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It would be interesting to know if the increase is sales is in some due to announcement by the Government to abolish s21? If so we could see a further increase in sales when the precises plans are published .
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