Transactions and prices – moving in tandem but to different scales

18th September 2023

There were just over one million residential sales across England and Wales in the year to end July. This is -11.4% below the volume a year ago.

Whilst it is lower than the high transaction volumes experienced during the pandemic, it is only 7.8% below the average for the five years up to 2019 (pre-pandemic).

Does a fall in sale volumes translate into an equal fall in prices? History shows us that whilst sale volumes and prices tend to move in tandem through cycles, they are moving to different scales.

Looking back to the last housing market downturn, the worst annual fall in sale volumes was -47.6% (year to February 2009) whilst the worst fall in prices was -15.4% (year to end March 2009).

Source: #Dataloft, Land Registry and HMRC, data to June/July 2023