"Taken together with the figures for the two months before Christmas, this is a huge shot in the arm and paints a picture of a real recovery starting to take hold."
Transactions rose by 6.2% between November and December, putting the total number of homes sold in the whole of 2019 at 1.18 million, only fractionally down on 2018’s figure of 1.19 million.
On a non-non-seasonally adjusted basis, residential transactions increased by 11.2% in 2019.
Neil Knight, business development director at Spicerhaart Part-Exchange and Assisted Move, said: “It’s normal that people don’t look to move house around Christmas so we’d have expected to see a bit of a fall-off in December’s figures, but that hasn’t happened. After a year of essentially flat-lining, the seasonally-adjusted figures have shown a significant increase in December.
“Taken together with the figures for the two months before Christmas, this is a huge shot in the arm and paints a picture of a real recovery starting to take hold.
“We’re already seeing a strong start to the year and it seems pretty clear that now the election is out of the way, everyone’s feeling a bit more confident and ready to make the moves that they’ve perhaps been putting off before.
“It’s still going to take some time for that to filter through fully so we’re optimistic that the first few months of 2020 could be very positive.”
