Home sales jump by a quarter month-on-month in May following April slump
Across the UK, around 81,470 home sales were recorded provisionally in May, which was 25% higher than April but a 12% fall compared with May 2024.
Stamp duty discounts became less generous for some homebuyers from April, with people rushing to complete deals before the deadline. Stamp duty applies in England and Northern Ireland.
HMRC's report said: 'The increase in transactions for May follows decreased transactions for April, which were likely brought forward into March to take advantage of the higher thresholds.'
Tom Bill, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank, said: 'Housing transactions are still clambering back to normal levels after the stamp duty cliff-edge earlier this year.'
He added: 'One thing slowing down the process is the vast quantity of stock on the market, which means asking prices need to be kept realistic to trigger activity.
'At this halfway point in the year, the tariff and stamp duty chaos are largely behind us, but tax rise speculation ahead of the Budget could see some buyer hesitation creep back in.'
Nick Leeming, chairman of Jackson-Stops, said: 'In the current market, it's essential for sellers to remember there is always demand for a sensibly-priced property.'
Nathan Emerson, chief executive officer of property professionals' body Propertymark, said: 'We have seen positivity regarding the number of properties coming to the market.'
Richard Donnell, executive director at Zoopla, said data from the website indicates that 'new sales are being agreed at the fastest rate for four years, as more homes for sale means more buyers in the market, with the stamp duty changes in the distant past in the minds of home buyers'.
He said: 'The market remains on track for 1.15 million sales in 2025, up 5% on 2024 levels as more households move home.'
Amy Reynolds, head of sales at London-based estate agent Antony Roberts, said: 'The spring/summer market is traditionally a time when people prefer to move and this is being reflected in transaction numbers.
'There's plenty of desire to buy in the core price ranges and we're also seeing a rise in first-time buyer activity, even though the stamp duty holiday has ended.
'Many are receiving help from family and being driven by pressures in the rental market, where demand far exceeds supply and rental listings have dropped sharply.'
Mark Harris, chief executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients, said: 'Transaction numbers have risen again as (Bank of England) base rate reductions encourage activity and enable borrowers to plan ahead with more confidence.
'We expect interest rates to fall further from their current level although the pace and size of cuts may be more gradual than the markets thought only a few weeks ago as a result of higher inflation and the wider economic picture.
'In the meantime, lenders continue to trim their mortgage rates as swap rates fall. Easing of criteria should also enable borrowers take on bigger mortgages in coming months.'
Several mortgage lenders have recently announced changes to their affordability criteria, enabling some borrowers to take out bigger loans.
This follows clarification from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which also launched a discussion paper this week inviting debate on the future of the mortgage market to help support borrowers.
On Friday, Santander UK said it has introduced improved affordability rates on newbuild properties, which could potentially allow some customers purchasing a newbuild home to borrow thousands of pounds more than they could previously. The updated calculations consider features particular to owning newbuild properties, including the potential for lower running costs compared with an older property.
Tony Hall, head of business development at Saffron for Intermediaries, said: 'Looking ahead, there are reasons to remain optimistic.
'With summer demand building and more homes coming to market, conditions are gradually shifting in buyers' favour as we move into the second half of the year.'
Kevin Roberts, managing director of L&G's mortgage services business, said: 'Today's figures are encouraging for the industry, especially after the flurry of activity we saw in March to beat the stamp duty changes deadline.'
Iain McKenzie, chief executive of the Guild of Property Professionals, said: 'The rush to complete in March created an artificial lull, but we are now seeing the return of genuine, underlying demand.'
He continued: 'The recent (Bank of England base rate) cut to 4.25% has provided a welcome boost to buyer affordability.
'However, the most significant catalyst is the relaxation of affordability criteria from lenders. By enabling buyers to borrow more and stress-testing against more realistic rates, lenders have unlocked a new wave of purchasing power, playing a crucial role in driving these transactions forward.'
He added: 'Buyers now have more choice than they've had for years, which is helping to keep price growth sustainable.'
Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said first-time buyers may find some opportunities to bag a bargain.
She said: 'For those who are still saving, and frustrated they might miss this window, there are still things you can do to put yourself in a better position when you come to buy.
'If you're aged 18 to 39, saving for a property worth £450,000 or less, and have at least a year until you plan to buy, you can take advantage of the Lifetime Isa, so that the first £4,000 you save each year can be topped up by the Government by an extra £1,000.'
Matt Smith, Rightmove's mortgage expert said: 'We've seen some small mortgage rate reductions this week.'
He added: 'Some further lender rate cuts coupled with positive buyer sentiment could spur on a positive start to the second half of the year.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Sheffield Wednesday reach point of no return under Chansiri's ownership
Sheffield Wednesday have been testing the patience of the EFL and their fans since the controversial sale of Hillsborough to the owner, Dejphon Chansiri, seven years ago, but even so the escalation of the club's crisis from alarming to existential has happened at some speed. After years of somehow coping with transfer embargoes, points deductions, missed tax bills and the late payment of players, Chansiri's turbulent ownership appears to be reaching the point of no return. Wednesday were last week banned by the EFL from spending money on transfers until January 2027 for exceeding '30 days of late payments' to players in the previous 12 months and, the league clarified on Friday, for another missed payment to HMRC. The club, who have appealed against that penalty, will be in danger of having no players if they fail to pay June's wages on Monday's due date. Under Fifa regulations players would be entitled to give notice of their intent to terminate their contracts. The regulations state: 'In the case of a club unlawfully failing to pay a player at least two monthly salaries on their due dates, the player will be deemed to have a just cause to terminate his contract, provided that he has put the debtor club in default in writing and has granted a deadline of at least 15 days for the debtor club to fully comply with its financial obligation(s). Alternative provisions in contracts existing at the time of this provision coming into force may be considered.' Wednesday are understood to have belatedly paid some players last month's wages – payments for March were also late – but not all of Danny Röhl's squad have received their salaries. A club source said May's salary payments had been targeted, with Chansiri making sure the younger players and those under contract were paid in order to protect their resale value, whereas older squad members approaching the end of their contracts were not. The captain, Barry Bannan, the striker Callum Paterson and the defender Akin Famewo are out of contract next week after rejecting new deals offered last month, and it is unclear whether they have been paid. After contemplating a no-show Bannan is understood to have reported for duty as instructed on the first day of pre-season training on Thursday, but Paterson and Famewo did not turn up. All of Röhl's coaching staff are also out of contract next week and the manager, despite having two years on a contract that includes a seven-figure release clause, is expected to depart sooner rather than later. The German was interviewed by Southampton before they appointed Will Still last month, and is admired by Leicester, who have parted company with Ruud van Nistelrooy. Röhl may choose to leave Hillsborough even without a job to go to. Wednesday do not have pre-season fixtures arranged beyond an under-21s game against Frickley Athletic, and planned renovations to their training ground, including the installation of two new pitches, have not been completed. Hillsborough is in need of a major overhaul, with the infrastructure of the 126-year-old ground so poor that the boiler was unable to generate sufficient hot water for the players to shower in comfort at various points last season. Chansiri is believed to have acknowledged the gravity of the situation, and is willing to engage in serious talks regarding a sale. For years his family have funded multimillion-pound losses at Wednesday from the profits of their seafood business, Thai Union Group – total losses over his 10-year stewardship are more than £150m – but no longer appear willing to subsidise the club. TUG remains the world's biggest suppliers of canned tuna but its stock value has halved over the past decade, with the value of Chansiri's stake dropping from £18m to £9m. The family's overall stake is worth about 20 times that amount. Wednesday are attracting potential buyers, with two US consortiums understood to be particularly interested, but none have got anywhere near what they regard as Chansiri's outlandish valuation. Towards the end of last year the 57-year-old was telling brokers that Wednesday were worth twice as much as Sheffield United, who were being bought for £111m, and although his asking price has dropped it remains far too high for the would-be buyers. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion An independent analyst who has studied Wednesday's accounts said an enterprise value of about £40m was realistic given the club do not own Hillsborough, and that the amount could be doubled if the ground were part of a deal. The stadium is owned by a company called Sheffield 3 Limited, which is controlled by Chansiri. Wednesday's attempt to include the £60m stadium sale in their 2017-18 accounts for the purpose of profitability and sustainability regulations, even though it did not take place until the following season, led to their being docked six points by the EFL (reduced from 12 on appeal). Chansiri is conducting sale negotiations, often from Bangkok. Wednesday are woefully understaffed at management level, with no chief executive or sporting director, leaving the club secretary, Lindsey Hinton, to put out the fires locally. Chansiri issued a rare public statement on Thursday, saying a potential sale with an American group had collapsed after the buyer failed to pay a £5m deposit, but it will have done little to reassure supporters. 'I take full responsibility for being unable to fulfil my current obligations,' Chansiri said. 'But a further obligation I have is to ensure that if the club is sold, it is sold to the right people with the right credentials, who can sustain Sheffield Wednesday and take the club forward.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Warning for higher rate taxpayers with more than £14,500 saved
Millions of higher rate taxpayers with more than £14,500 in savings could find themselves footing a shock tax bill. Record numbers of people have been pulled into the higher tax band, which means their tax-free savings allowance is slashed - and they will lose 40 per cent of interest above it to tax. The number of higher rate tax payers is set to balloon to more than 7million as thresholds remain frozen, figures from HMRC show. Half a million tax payers have been dragged into the 40 per cent tax bracket in the past year alone, and higher rate payers now account for almost a fifth of all tax payers. With the average easy-access account now paying 3.53 per cent, it means higher rate-taxpayers with more than around £14,500 in savings would breach their tax-free savings allowance this tax year, according to rates scrutineer Moneyfacts Compare. The personal savings allowance allows savers to earn up to £1,000 of interest tax-free. But this is only for basic rate taxpayers, higher rate tax payers see it halved to just £500 and additional rate tax payers have no tax-free allowance at all. > How the personal savings allowance and savings tax work HMRC expects to collect £6.1billion in tax on savings in the 2025/26 tax year. Of this around £1.3billion is expected to arrive from higher rate tax payers. Additional rate taxpayers, meanwhile, are expected to foot 70 per cent of the bill paid in savings tax at £4.2billion. Adam French, consumer expert at rates scrutineer Moneyfacts Compare says: 'The latest statistics from HMRC show how important it is for savers to be aware of their tax liability. 'Especially many of those who have fallen into paying the higher-rate tax of 40 per cent, whose personal savings allowance has been halved from £1,000 to £500 as a result.' How to beat the savings interest tax trap If you are keeping your savings in cash, an Isa will help you avoid a tax bill on the interest. An Isa is a tax-wrapper that allows you to salt away up to £20,000 in each tax year into savings or investments, with all returns then completely tax-free. Savers have cottoned on to this fact while interest rates have been high and the savings allowance threshold has been frozen, meaning Isas have had record amount of cash flooding into them. In April this year alone - the start of the new tax year - a record £14billion flooded into cash Isas. This was the highest figure for any month since Isas were introduced in 1999. And it does have an impact when it comes to taking the sting out of a tax bill, which can be seen in the latest HMRC figures. The nation's savings tax bill was dramatically lower last year than the Government had initially predicted. Last year HMRC forecast we would pay £10.4billion in tax on our savings in 2024-25, but this has now revised that down by a whopping £4.5billion to just shy of £6billion. Laura Suter, director of personal finance at AJ Bell said: 'This is likely down to two factors: interest rates not staying as high for as long as initially expected, and more people sheltering their savings from His Majesty's Revenue and Customs in tax-free Isas. 'We've seen record cash Isa usage in the past couple of years, as people are aware that they will be hit with tax on their savings.' Adam French added: 'Plenty of savers can avoid this tax bill by making use their yearly Isa allowances, with cash Isas keeping the savings of millions of people free from tax.' Five of the best cash Isas Products featured are independently selected by This is Money's specialist journalists. If you open an account using links which have an asterisk, This is Money will earn an affiliate commission. We do not allow this to affect our editorial independence. A cash Isa is an essential account for savers that protects you from tax on your interest. This means that your pot can grow without tax dragging it back - something that is especially important for the growing number of 40 per cent taxpayers. This is Money's savings experts scour the market for the real best cash Isa deals - looking for top rates and accounts that come without catches to trip you up. Below you can find a run down of our top deals and you can check all the best cash Isa rates in our savings tables. CMC Invest* easy-access - 5.44% (0.85% bonus for 3 months) - Facts: £1 to open, no limit on withdrawals, short bonus - Transfers in: Yes - Flexible: Yes Trading 212* - easy access - 4.92% with this link - Facts: £1 to open, no limit on withdrawals, 0.73% bonus for 12 months - Transfers in: Yes (but won't get bonus rate) - Flexible: Yes Chip easy access* - 5.00% (0.94% bonus rate for 3 months) - Facts: £1 to open, limited to three withdrawals a year, short bonus - Transfers in: Yes - Flexible: No Cynergy Bank one-year fix - 4.35% - Facts: £1,000 to open - Transfers in: Yes - Flexible: No Cynergy Bank two-year fix - 4.25% - Facts: £1,000 to open - Transfers in: Yes - Flexible: No
The National
3 hours ago
- The National
Time has not restored Murray's battered Rangers legacy
The former Ibrox chairman has been busy promoting his new book, entitled 'Mettle', a play on the industry where he made his fortune and the quality he undoubtedly showed in abundance to overcome personal tragedies and live the life that he has. The one challenge though that it seems impossible for him to overcome is to rebuild his shattered reputation in the eyes of the Rangers support, to the vast majority of whom he will always be the man who sold the club to Craig Whyte. And for a sum 22 times less than the RRP of his book, no less. The subheading to the book's title – 'Tragedy, courage and titles' – is telling, because that only gives the story up to a point. Anything that came after that is deemed unworthy of inclusion in this short summation of Murray's life, while anything that came before his fateful exit from Rangers now, sadly for him, seems irrelevant to the Ibrox fanbase. (Image: SNS Group Steve Welsh) The book itself does include Murray's telling of his thinking leading up to that fateful sale to Whyte, and the context was that he, undoubtedly, was in a difficult situation. Lloyds were seemingly turning the screw on the Rangers chairman (though he downplays this) and urging him to offload the club, which owed the bank around £18m. There was the tax liability on top of that stemming from Murray's ill-judged use of the EBT scheme, which at that time was thought to be as high as £70m, though it was later reduced to around £20m or thereabouts after HMRC admitted to errors in their calculations and a subsequent settlement agreement. The bottom line is this, though. Without Murray embarking upon the use of EBTs, no matter how much he may still stress the legality of the scheme, HMRC would never have had cause to darken the Ibrox doorstep. Furthermore, Rangers would never have been in a position where they could be sold for a quid to a character such as Whyte. Most damning of all - and this is the part that doesn't pass the smell test - is that Murray argues he had no notion of the ruinous path he had set Rangers on when he handed the keys to Whyte. In his book, he says that he took that decision 'in good faith', and that he 'went on the facts in front of me'. 'A journalist asked me at the time if our due diligence should have been more thorough,' Murray writes. 'It's easy to look back and say: 'Yes, of course it should' but anyone typing Whyte's name into Google back in 2011 would have found one article from years before. Nothing else.' The fans are expected to believe that this feted businessman, who had spent years cultivating an image as a meticulously shrewd, savvy and abundantly connected operator, simply didn't know who he was dealing with when it came to passing on the club he had spent 23 years leading. That his background checks on the man went as far as a simple Google search. In short, they don't. Instead, the narrative that has gained most traction is that Murray knew exactly where Rangers were heading, and he didn't want to be the captain at the helm when the ship went down. That Whyte was a convenient fall-guy. If this is true, and I should stress there is no evidence to prove it, then as an exercise in saving face and safeguarding his legacy, it was entirely redundant. Instead of protecting his name, he has instead been christened with a new soubriquet – Sir 'Duped'. The inverted commas are, of course, always included to denote sarcasm. Whether he did know who he was dealing with in Whyte or not, neither position reflects well on him. If he didn't, he should have. Many Rangers supporters will never forgive him either way. (Image: SNS Group Bill Murray) In some ways, it is a great pity that it has all ended like this for Murray. The good times he brought to Ibrox were among some of the most memorable ever seen at the club. He broke down barriers, signing Mo Johnston. He was at the helm as the team brought home nine-in-a-row. Away from football, his fortitude is commendable and impossible not to admire. The proceeds of his book, incidentally, will go to Erskine, the veteran's charity. Ultimately though, the hubris that spawned his famous quote of spending a tenner for every fiver that Celtic put on the table was the same that led to his – and ultimately, to Rangers' – downfall. Not only do the supporters place the blame for what happened back in 2012 firmly at Sir David's door, but for the sorry state they have found themselves in for most of the time since. For the single league title in the 14 years since he left the club. For Celtic's subsequent domestic domination. And now, just as an exciting new era is dawning at Rangers at long, long last, even the timing of his re-emergence to shift the narrative away from the positive changes taking place at Ibrox this summer has hardly helped to restore his battered image. After 14 years, it appears nothing, not even the passage of time, will.
