The UK housing market continues to recover…..

The media is full of lots of negative stories. Companies closing, people being made redundant and people’s hours at work being cut. Why do they always focus on the negative? Although there was the new good news story about Tesco’s creating 16,000 new jobs!

The UK housing market is one of the good news stories post covid. Sales are up and month by month recovery is getting stronger. This is good news for many and not just estate agents and home movers.

When houses sell, other sectors benefit. DIY companies prosper, tradespeople become busier and furniture stores thrive. The housing market is also closely linked to consumer spending. When house prices go up, homeowners become better off and feel more confident and as such, they spend more.

When house prices go down, homeowners risk that their house will be worth less than their outstanding mortgage, therefore they cut down on their spending.

In July, HMRC registered 70,710 transactions. This is an increase of 14.5% on June. Sales, however, are still 27.4% down on July 2019.

Where we do get real hope is Rightmove’s report on new sales agreed in July. They have reported the highest number of sales agreed in any month since they started tracking data 10 years ago.

It will be interesting to see if the housing market catches up!

If you would like to know more what is happening in the Lancaster and Morecambe Housing Report, check out our monthly market updates where we report on what is happening locally!

Read them here