House Sales Improve in February

HMRC have said that the number of homes sold in the UK saw a rise in February.

58,000 home sales were completed last month, this was a 14% increase on January’s figures.  The rise compared with February 2009 was also substantial, however the numbers are still a long way down on the 103,000 sales that were completed in December.

December’s boom was due to people rushing through the completion of deals in order to beat the reintroduction of the lower stamp duty threshold, which was implemented at the end of the year.

The surge in sales at the end of last year appears to have caused a lull in sales during January and February, this was exacerbated further by the cold weather in January that effected travel all over the company limiting peoples chances of moving.

According to both the Halifax and Nationwide mortgage lenders, prices fell in February after rising gently for most of the preceding year.

Earlier this week, figures from the British Bankers' Association (BBA) suggested that the property market would stay subdued for some time.

It reported that its members, who account for about 70% of all mortgage lending, approved just 35,275 new mortgages with house buyers last month.

These are widely regarded as a good indicator of short-term trends in lending and were barely above the 35,154 approved in January.

Chancellor Alistair Darling took action in his Budget this week to keep activity in the housing market ticking over.

For the next two financial years, first-time buyers will not have to pay the 1% stamp duty that would normally be levied on purchases worth between £125,000 and £250,000.

Posted at 09:22AM Mar 28, 2010 by Marc Stenton in Mortgages & Housing Market  |  Comments[0]