More than £171bn worth of residential property was sold across England and Wales last year despite the Covid-19 pandemic, new research shows.

Fresh analyses all residential property sales to complete via the Land Registry between January and December of last year, to see just what impact the current stamp duty holiday has had on the market, found that a total of £171.7bn worth of residential property sold in 2020.

This is a rather respectable performance given the tricky landscape posed by the pandemic, although this is a 38% decline on the amount recorded in 2019, according to the study carried out by Keller Williams.

Despite a dip in market activity, London continues to dominate when it comes to most valuable pockets of the property market.

Westminster saw the highest sum of property sold prices, with £2.9bn worth of residential bricks and mortar sold in 2020. Kensington and Chelsea came second with £2.7bn worth of property sold, while Wandsworth was the third most valuable home selling hotspot with a total of £2.5bn worth of property selling last year.

With a  total of almost £2bn in property sold over the last year, Cornwall is the most valuable market outside of the capital. Birmingham also ranked high with £1.8bn in property sales throughout 2020.

Leeds (£1.75bn) Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (£1.7bn), Wiltshire (£1.5bn), Bristol (£1.45bn), Dorset (£1.45bn) and Cheshire East (£1.4bn) also ranked as some of the most valuable areas of the property market outside of London.

Ben Taylor, CEO of Keller Williams UK, commented: “Despite the radical market turn around spurred by the reopening of the property sector and the introduction of a stamp duty holiday, Covid has clearly had a lasting impact on the market in 2020.

“While the average house price has surged this year, a 38% reduction in the total value of property sold demonstrates the detrimental impact the pandemic had on market activity over the last year.

“This is even more significant when you consider that it’s compared with a 2019 market that was already operating sluggishly due to Brexit uncertainty.

“However, when considering all of these factors, it makes the late rally shown by the property market in the wake of a stamp duty holiday introduction all the more impressive. To think that this market revival still saw £171.7bn worth of residential property sold in what is a relatively short period of time is actually quite remarkable.”