Number Of Agreed UK House Sales Over Past Month ‘Up 15% On 2023’
The number of agreed house sales over the past month was 15% up on this time last year, according to Rightmove, as buyers anticipate “gamechanging” interest rate cuts they hope could come as early as August.
Britain’s biggest property website said homebuyers largely shrugged off the “distractions” of the general election and the Euro 2024 football tournament to keep transactions well above this time last year.
It said the average price of property coming to the market for sale dropped a fractional 0.4%, or £1,617, to £373,493, although it warned prices in the south-east fell by 2% alone.
However, Rightmove said the number of sales being agreed was now an “encouraging” 15% above the same period a year ago and sales were likely to increase by the autumn. This time last year the UK market was struggling to cope with the peak of mortgage rates.
The Rightmove director Tim Bannister said many would-be home movers were waiting for the first Bank of England rate cut, from a current level of 5.25%, before acting.
Households’ hopes of a cut in interest rates received mixed messages last week. On Wednesday the chief economist of the Bank of England, Huw Pill, said key measures of inflation remained “uncomfortably high”, somewhat dampening hopes of an early August rate cut.
However, a number of big-name lenders appeared to think otherwise, as by the end of last week they had all cut the price of their best mortgage deals.
The UK’s biggest lender, Halifax, reduced its rates by up to 0.13%, while Barclays reduced them by up to 0.33%. The bank’s five-year fixed-rate mortgage is now the cheapest on the market at 4.08%.