Number of homes snapped up by buyers this year ‘will be highest since 2007’
Buyers rushed to make stamp duty savings in the first half of 2021 and made lifestyle and location changes.
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Your support makes all the difference.More homes are expected to be sold across 2021 than in any other year since 2007, according to a forecast.
A strong first half of the year as buyers rushed to make stamp duty savings and changed their lifestyles and locations means more homes will have sold in 2021 than in any year since 2007, estate agent Hamptons predicts.
By the end of 2021, it forecasts that 1.5 million homes will have been sold across Britain.
House price growth is expected to slow in the coming months, although values across Britain are still predicted to be 13.5% higher by 2024.
Hamptons said it expects the North East of England to see the strongest price growth by 2024, with prices expected to rise by 21.5%.
The housing market has confounded expectations
But by 2024, the average house price in the region will still be 41% below the national average, it predicted, unless economic growth in the region picks up pace.
House prices in Scotland are also tipped for strong growth of 20% over the period.
Hamptons said it believes that the summer of 2021, when a stamp duty holiday started to be tapered, marked peak house price growth.
Aneisha Beveridge, head of research at Hamptons, said: “The housing market has confounded expectations and forecasts in past months. Back in the autumn of 2020, such were the economic challenges being faced that we could not have envisaged the extraordinary demand for relocation which we have seen this year.
“But there has been a huge attitudinal change towards property, which cannot be attributed to the stamp duty holiday alone.”
She continued: “The pandemic has accelerated the closing of the house price gap between London and the rest of the country.
“Even so, we still expect London to underperform the rest of the country until 2024, when the cycle is likely to end.”
Here are Hamptons’ forecasts for average house price growth by 2024:
North East 21.5%
Scotland, 20%
Wales, 17%
North West, 16.5%
Yorkshire and the Humber, 16%
West Midlands, 14%
East Midlands, 13%
South East 12.5%
East of England, 11%
South West, 11%
London, 7%