HMRC’s residential property transactions for December were 5% higher than the previous year on a seasonally adjusted basis, at 100,440. The non-seasonally adjusted estimate was up by 7% to 105,730 year-on-year, and 1% higher than November 2025.
Monthly transaction levels have remained stable since summer last year, with the first half of the year affected by the SDLT threshold reductions.
The figures have been welcomed as the shape of things to come, with PEXA CEO Joe Pepper calling them “more than simply a seasonal anomaly” and predicting demand is set to increase.
Movera CEO Nick Hale agreed, and praised the property sector for picking up the pace in the post-budget rush. He added:
“The industry will need to keep up momentum in the coming months as there is already a big pipeline of sales in progress and we can expect to see transactions increase even further in the wake of a post-Boxing Day spike in listings and falling interest rates.”
Nathan Emerson, CEO at Propertymark, said HMRC’s figures are encouraging but warned many buyers are still struggling with affordability issues.
He added:
“At a time when many households were concerned about rising living costs, this stability suggests that the budget provided enough clarity for people to continue progressing with plans to buy or sell a home… That said, many buyers are still feeling the strain of higher borrowing costs. To ease wider cost of living pressures and encourage more market activity, inflation and interest rates will need to fall. This would help make mortgages more affordable and support greater confidence among those looking to move home.”
Andrew Lloyd, managing director at Search Acumen, said December’s figures show a market holding the line against the usual seasonal slowdown. “This suggests the tentative momentum we saw building in November has managed to weather the winter chill, showing surprising resilience at the tail end of a turbulent year,” he said.
“As we look into the first quarter of 2026, the overarching theme remains the same: the market craves certainty. Pent-up demand is building, but activity will continue to come in fits and starts until we get a stable economic and political runway.”
“For the property industry, January is the time to prepare for this returning demand. Law firms and conveyancers who used the December lull to audit their workflows, integrate AI, and digitise their due diligence will be the ones winning market share as the spring pipeline builds.”
Anthony Codling, managing director of equity research at RBC Capital Markets, said 2025 ended on a high and 2026 is shaping up to be even better.
“If this is what the UK housing market can achieve in what many regarded as bad year for the housing market, 2026 may well turn out to be a golden year – with a backdrop of falling mortgage rates and (according to UK housebuilders’ January trading updates) improving homebuyer sentiment.”
Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said while the figures don’t indicate a boom just yet, the signs are promising. He explained:
“Zoopla data shows that 2026 has got off to a slower start than a year ago with slightly fewer buyers and new sales, but there are clear signs that momentum is building. There is a strong desire to move home, but buyers remain cautious and price sensitive.”
Maria Harris, chair of the Open Property Data Association (OPDA), is confident demand will increase but warned fall-throughs are an increasingly worrying trend. “We need to transform the process, based on a common, trusted foundation for data sharing,” she said.
“Digital sales ready listings and upfront information have the potential to transform the home buying and selling journey, creating faster, more transparent transactions with fewer delays and fall-throughs. By sharing more information upfront, it creates more certainty for all parties and reduces the risk of sales collapsing further down the line.”
PEXA’s Joe Pepper agrees the industry needs to make changes, and urged stakeholders to act swiftly to deal with the predicted surge in demand.
“Readiness to deal with such a surge will be crucial,” he concluded.
“It will be the difference between a prosperous housing market that drives economic growth and a market that collapses under the pressure. When further demand comes, conveyancers will do all they can to serve their customers as they always do, but if they don’t have adequate infrastructure in place to process transactions with certainty and transparency, it won’t be long before the system crumbles, placing enormous strain on a market that we’re depending on for economic growth.
“We need urgent public and private investment in the digitalisation of a system that is currently failing every stakeholder – conveyancers, lenders, brokers and consumers alike.”
