Housing market on course for ‘bumper decade’ of homebuyer activity

New research has revealed that so far this decade, there has already been a significant increase in the average number of transactions seen across the property market on a monthly basis, signalling that despite the recent challenges of higher interest rates, we’re seeing a more buoyant market when compared to the previous decade.

Moverly analysed the average number of annual UK residential property transactions seen each decade from 1990 to the present day to gain insight into how the strain placed on the UK property market has evolved over the years.

The data reveals that during the 1990s, a total of 12.935m homes were sold across the UK, equating to an average of 1.293 transactions for each of the 10 years.

This level of market activity accelerated in the noughties, with 1.405m homes sold on average each year, an increase of 8.6% versus the previous decade despite the market turmoil seen in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis.

However, the impact of the market crash seen in 2008 left its mark the following decade with just 11.036m homes sold across the UK during the 2010s, equating to an average of 1.104m, per year, with this average annual total sitting -22% below the previous decade.

As the halfway point of the 2020s is approached, transaction numbers appear to be making a strong recovery. In less than five years, the UK has seen an estimated 5.337m residential transactions. This is equivalent to an average of 1.186m per year, which currently marks a 7.5% increase versus the previous decade. Gemma Young, Moverly CEO, said:

“As we approach the halfway point of the current decade, the figures show that property market activity sits substantially higher than the previous decade and this will be welcome news for an industry that suffered greatly following the global financial crash in 2008.

These positive figures come despite the fact that the property market has had to weather a period of prolonged uncertainty spurred by higher interest rates and now that we’ve weathered the storm and are heading in the right direction, the market looks set to continue performing well over the coming years.

Whilst we can’t anticipate what might happen over the following five years, we’re currently on course for a very strong decade where transaction levels are concerned and this means that property professionals are likely to have a more consistently heavy workload than they have carried for a long time.

This is going to put real strain on the current transaction processes, and could lead to more of the backlogs and bottlenecks that we’ve seen many times in the past.”