Sales Down 80 Per Cent?

Yesterday The Negotiator (a trade mag for estate agents) inadvertently put the wind up everyone with a report headlined: “House sales plummet 80 per cent, Land Registry data reveals.”

Crikey!

It continued: “So far, only 21,749 sales have been recorded for this July in England and Wales – a fall of 79 per cent compared with July 2007.”

That sounds like a calamitous meltdown. But, just to set the record straight, the numbers are not quite right.

There’s a significant time lag in Land Registry data (chart above). Their report for July, published last week, states: “Because sales volume figures for the two most recent months are not yet complete, they are not included in the report.”

Calnea Analytics, the chaps who crunch the Land Reg numbers, say: “The figures quoted by The Negotiator are interim statistics. We would expect July transaction volumes to be around 60-70,000.”

There were 116,700 sales in July 2007 so the year-on-year fall is more likely to be around 48.5 per cent.

It’s also worth noting that the rate of decline hasn’t changed much since the start of the year – transaction volumes have averaged 59,622 per month since February 08, down from 99,024 last year (-40 per cent)

It’s by no means a rosy picture, but – deep breaths! – not nearly as bad as an 80 per cent plummet.