UK Property Market Outlook: 21 June 2021

Written By:

Tom Bill, Knight Frank

21 Jun 2021

3 minutes to read

Categories: Property Sector Residential Sales Research Topic Property taxes World Regions UK

From the end of this month, the maximum stamp duty holiday saving falls to £2,500 from £15,000 and will remain at that level until the end of September.

June will be a robust month for the UK housing market but what will happen as the holiday tapers during the third quarter of the year?

The early days of July are likely to involve price renegotiations for buyers and sellers who missed the 30 June deadline. One reason for the taper was to alleviate pressures on the conveyancing system, which have ramped up again this month.

The current scarcity of removal teams is one example of this pressure and some completion dates will inevitably slip.

A minority of deals will fall through and overall transaction numbers will drop as activity patterns are shaped by stamp duty across all price bands, as discussed last week.

The busiest month for completions in England and Wales is typically August, Land Registry data since 1995 shows.

December was the most active month in 2020 due to the pandemic. This year, it is likely to be March or June. In fact, it will be telling to see whether there is a bigger spike in deal volumes ahead of the real or postponed stamp duty deadline. If the June spike is smaller than the March spike, it could signal calmer conditions ahead.

A smaller uptick is likely in September, with demand sustained by the fact fewer people will be going on holiday abroad this summer, although the precise rules around international travel remain in flux. Lower-value property markets will also be supported by a tax-free rate that falls to £250,000 from £500,000.

The other point to make about Q3 is that seasonality will support transactions in some markets more than others.

The busiest property markets in the third quarter are those that revolve most closely around the academic year, Land Registry records show.

Oxford had the largest percentage of completions take place in Q3 since records began in 1995, Knight Frank analysis of data that excludes 2020 shows. On average, 30.7% of completions happened in the university town between July and September.

This was followed by Waverley in Surrey (30%) and Cambridge (29.9%), underlining the important role played by the academic year in some property markets.
In addition to schools, demand in Oxford and Cambridge is supported during the summer months by those involved in academia and research.

The top ten local authorities with the strongest third quarter completion numbers is dominated by south-east England, where in-demand schools support property values.

The average percentage of outstanding-rated secondary schools per local authority was 29% in the top ten, which compared to 11.3% in the ten least busy summer markets. For primary schools the equivalent figures were 24.6% and 15.9%.

“It is no surprise that many of the areas with the highest numbers of summer completions are close to the capital,” said James Cleland, head of Knight Frank’s Country business. “So many family buyers are driven by both having a reasonable commute to London and having their children in their next school for the start of the academic year."

Those local authorities with the lowest proportion of completions in Q3 include Newham in London (25.4%), Blaenau Gwent (25.7%), Barnsley (26%) and Stoke-on-Trent (26.1%).

Irrespective of the role played by seasonality, what happens in the final quarter of the year, when the schools are back and there is no stamp duty holiday in place, will reveal more about the longer-term trajectory of the UK property market than the preceding nine months.

Photo by Ben Seymour on Unsplash