No Of People Buying Houses Rose By 13% In August

August was a good month for the property market, as the number of people purchasing houses and flats increased by almost 13 per cent compared with the previous month.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the UK Property Transactions Count for August 2018 earlier this week, which showed that non-adjusted residential transactions were 12.9 per cent higher than in July. They were also 3.9 per cent higher than the same month in 2017.

This is good news for the construction market as well, as it demonstrates a strong demand for residences and shows Brits are increasingly being able to afford to get on the property ladder. Therefore, construction workers could be using a lot of steel cladding sheets to help develop more new buildings across the country over the next few months.

In terms of seasonally adjusted figures, the number of residential property sales rose by 1.3 per cent between July and August, with 99,120 transactions taking place. This is less than 2,000 more than July’s figures.

However, the non-seasonally adjusted numbers show 117,240 properties were purchased in August, which is almost 14,000 more than the month before.

August was a very strong month for sales, with 36,870 more transactions than the quietest month of the year, January. During this month, only 80,370 signed deeds on a house or flat.

The increase in number of homebuyers finally completing their contract could be a result of asking prices falling.

According to property sales website Rightmove, houses dropped by £7,000 in value during August to £301,973 on average. This is 2.3 per cent decline since July – a greater fall than last year’s at 2.1 per cent.