"Of much more interest will be September’s data when the full impact of the stamp duty exemption will be felt and the bustle of activity that we are seeing will feed through to the official numbers."
This follows a monthly increase of 31.7% between May and June.
However, transactions remain 27.4% lower than in July 2019.
The HMRC figures show that the number of residential transactions for Q2 is the lowest it has ever recorded in this series, which began in 2005.
Rob Barnard, director of intermediaries at Masthaven, commented: “Today’s figures are a promising sign that the housing market is beginning to return to pre-Covid levels, with buyer confidence growing as we emerge from lockdown.
"However, while there may be some customers taking advantage of the stamp duty holiday and driving demand in the housing market, there will be many others who are struggling to secure mainstream finance, particularly those who have been financially impacted by the pandemic.
“As the number of ‘non-vanilla’ customers continues to rise, specialist lenders will play an increasingly important role in the recovery of the housing market. Customers who are self-employed, have been furloughed or have taken mortgage payment holidays will all need greater support in the months to come. Specialist lenders are in a prime position to help these borrowers find the right tailored lending solution for their situation and must continue to work with intermediaries to ensure customers have access to the funding they need as the country returns to some form of normal.”
Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, added: "While it’s still too early for the stamp duty holiday to feed through to HMRC’s July numbers, transactions continued to pick up owing to pent-up demand. Of much more interest will be September’s data when the full impact of the stamp duty exemption will be felt and the bustle of activity that we are seeing will feed through to the official numbers.
"Lenders remain keen to lend although they are exceptionally busy due to higher demand, dealing with the summer holidays and other demands placed on them by the fallout from the pandemic, with closer scrutiny of borrowers’ incomes meaning everything is taking longer. Rates are still competitively priced although at higher loan-to-values in particular they are creeping up."
