According to figures out today (February 14), house sales volumes hit their highest level in seven years in January and are only a whisker above the average seen in the boom years between 2000 and 2007.
Around 73,000 properties were bought or sold last month, a massive 67 per cent rise on the January of 2012, taking the average number of transactions to just 4 per cent higher than pre-recession figures, and nearly half the homes sold last year went to first-time buyers, which is a reflection on the Government’s Help to Buy scheme.
The demand for property also took the average price of homes up further, with the figure rising to £241,101, up over 5 per cent on the year, which according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is because there are not enough properties to meet demand.
The Institution predicts that prices will rise by 6 per cent a year over the next five years simply because there are not enough homes on the market and because more people are now in a position to buy rather than rent.
However, while this is good news for the housing market, there are fears that wages will struggle to keep pace with the price of property, with the Halifax building society reporting that, at 4.74, the price to earnings ratio is currently at its widest level since the market collapsed in 2008.
Meanwhile, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) reported that around 28,000 people had a property repossessed last year, a drop of 5,000 from 2012, while only 6,100 of these happened in the last three months of 2013, the lowest quarterly figure since records began in 2008.
According to the CML, low interest rates, relatively strong employment and good relationships between lenders and borrowers have helped to push the number of people losing their home downwards.