"The fall off in transactions compared with this time last year is astonishing."
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the figure is also 16.5% lower than June 2018.
Year-on-year, non-seasonally adjusted residential transactions were approximately 25.1% lower than June 2018.
Tomer Aboody, director of MT Finance, commented: "The fall off in transactions compared with this time last year is astonishing. Some transactions are happening but the volumes are not there as people can’t afford to move. Affordability is an issue, coupled with uncertainty around Brexit, which is having a significant impact on people’s lives and decisions about whether to move or not.
"The government needs to do a lot more to stimulate the housing market. There is a knock-on effect - if people are moving, whether at the top or the bottom of the market, it helps everyone else. Hopefully, the announcement of a new prime minister who has declared that he wants to reform stamp duty will have the desired effect of helping get transactions back to steady growth, which is good for everyone."
Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr, added: “Scary reading on the face of it, but it’s important to note that this data is reported with a bit of a lag and so the level of transactions being relayed are really those accepted back in March.
"With many of us, perhaps foolishly, believing we would be exiting the EU at the end of March, it stands to reason that the vast majority of buyers may have refrained from a sale until this event had passed.
"Therefore any dip in transactions should be viewed as a momentary stutter and with many other market indicators suggesting a return to form and growing levels of buyer demand over the last few months, we should start to see the number of properties being sold climb from here on in.”
