Sales volumes fell across all UK regions, with the biggest declines in London and the midlands, the latest Land Registry data show.
Figures for transactions up to August – the latest month for which sales volumes are available – show double digit declines everywhere except the north-west and east of England.
Activity in London fell the most annually in August, when 7,186 sales were recorded. This is down 15.8% on the same period last year.
The east midlands also saw a 15% drop to 6,405 transactions, while the west midlands was down 13.5% to 6,935.
The north-west had the smallest decline at 7.7% with 9,427 sales in August and the north-east was close behind with a 9% fall to 2,944.
Overall in August, the number of property transactions completed in the UK decreased by 9.7% annually but was up 3% compared with July.
Figures provided by trade body UK Finance on Twitter showed that cash transactions made up a bulk of the declines in the capital, down 23% in London compared with 16% for mortgaged sales.
Overall, cash transactions fell in the UK by 11%, while mortgaged transactions were down 12.9% annually, the Land Registry data show.
Sales in England were down by the most overall at 12% to 70,117 in August on an annual basis.
Northern Ireland saw an 8.6% decline to 5,453 and Welsh activity was down 3.4% to 3,982.
Scotland was the only part of the UK that saw an increase in volume, up 7.4% annually in August to 9,282.
Annual house price growth overall slowed to 4.5% in October from 4.8% in September, to an average £223,807, down 0.5% on a monthly basis.
Comments (1)
2018 prediction.
London and South East will not perform much, if any, better than 2017 in volumes or prices achieved. However South West, Wales, Midlands, Central areas and Home Counties north of London will have a small increase in volumes and moderate price rise of 3% to 4% as more buyers keep away from the over inflated asking prices of London.
I could be wrong !