HMRC has issues its provisional seasonally adjusted estimate of transactions in October 2020.

Its estimate for residential transactions is 105,630, 8.1% higher than October 2019 and 9.8% higher than September 2020.

UK non-residential transactions in October are estimated to be 9,140, 5.1% lower than October 2019 and 6.2% higher than in the previous month.

Meanwhile, the provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of UK residential transactions in October. is 121,740, 13.7% higher than October 2019 and 23.7% higher than September.

In addition, he provisional non-seasonally adjusted estimate of UK non-residential transactions in October is 9,840, 6.1% lower than October 2019 and 12.8% higher than September.

Mike Scott, chief analyst at estate agents Yopa, said:”HMRC is reporting a further increase in the number of homes sold in October, as the housing market caught up after it was shut down earlier in the year. The number of sales was 9.8% higher than in September and 8.1% higher than in October last year, the first time since February that there has been an increase compared with the previous year. The total (seasonally adjusted) number of sales was 105,630, the highest in any month since March 2016, when many people were rushing to beat the deadline for avoiding a stamp duty increase.

“These figures will still largely relate to sales that were agreed before the stamp duty holiday was announced in early July, and so we can expect further increases over the coming months as the additional sales resulting from the temporary holiday complete the sales process. However, there isn’t time for the market to fully catch up to where it would have been without the pandemic.

“The years from 2014 to 2019 all saw around 1.2 million homes sold, but the total for the first 10 months of 2020 is just under 800,000. Even a strong showing for the last two months won’t take the total for the year much over a million sales.”