HOUSE SALE STALL
Thousands of property transactions have been put on hold since the lockdown
NEARLY 400,000 home purchases have potentially been put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The property website Zoopla estimates 373,000 property transactions across the UK, worth £82 billion, are currently suspended, with sales now running at a tenth of levels in early March.
Figures show that demand for homes, in terms of people making enquiries about listings, fell sharply over March, with the greatest decline before the lockdown.
Demand decreased by 71% between the start of March and early April.
The greatest decline was recorded over the days ahead of the lockdown - with demand falling from 82% between March 16, when social distancing measures were strongly encouraged, to 45% on March 23, when the lockdown began.
While demand has since started to improve slowly, as of April 22 the latest date available - it still remains 59% below levels recorded at the start of March.
According to the report, the lockdown is yet to impact house prices, and the scale of any impact remains to be seen.
Even if restrictions are lifted in early May, that would have meant a two-month suspension in activity and it would take time for delayed deals and new business to restart.
Separate figures published this week by the Land Registry also show the drop in house sales.
In February, 17,049 sales had been registered. Comparable figures show just 5,514 registrations for March, a 68% drop.
The figure in
March 2019 was 28,871.
It’s not just prospective homeowners and those trying to sell being hit by the pandemic - the coronavirus outbreak has also put the finances of many of those staying put under strain.
One in seven mortgages is now covered by payment holidays. That’s over 1.6 million mortgages, as of April 24.
A payment holiday is when people can stop making payments on a mortgage for a set time period while sorting their finances out. For the average mortgage holder, the payment holiday amounts to £755 per month.