The provisional UK property transaction count for June 2018 was 96,340 residential transactions, according to the latest report from HM Revenue and Customs.
The number of residential property transactions decreased by 3.0% between May 2018 and June 2018.
And the figure is 5.7% lower compared with the same month last year.
Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, said: “With an August interest rate rise now looking very unlikely, lenders are offering some great summer sizzler mortgage deals that will give a welcome boost to the housing market over coming months.
“Five-year fixed rates, in particular, are still very attractive with a number pegged at less than 2%, providing security from potential rate rises over the medium term.”
However, John Eastgate, sales and marketing director at OneSavings Bank, said it is not a surprise that the housing market has come off the boil this year, given escalating Brexit uncertainty and its impact on consumer confidence.
He said: “Affordability challenges still prevail, with house price inflation continuing to exceed wage inflation, leaving house prices still out of reach for many.
“However, there may be some cause for optimism with recent mortgage data pointing to an uptick in lending amongst first-time buyers, arguably fuelled by Help to Buy, but there is an awful long way to go before buyer activity is back to pre-crash levels.”
Mike Scott, chief property analyst at Yopa, the low fixed-fee estate agent, added: “The housing market is slowing down again with the number of house sales completing in June some 5.7 per cent lower than the same month last year, in what is normally the busiest month of the year for completions.
“We now have figures for the first half of the year, and the seasonally adjusted total is 586,530 completed house sales, 4.5 per cent down on the 614,240 in the first half of 2017.
“It seems likely that the total for the year will fall short of 1.2 million house sales, and so it will be the worst year since 2013, although only down on previous years by a few percent.
“The slowdown seems to be driven by both lower supply and lower demand, and so it is unlikely to have much effect on house prices, which will continue to increase as long as we keep the current situation of low unemployment, low interest rates and good availability of mortgages.”
