May property transactions rise by 0.8%: HMRC

The number of non-adjusted residential transactions was about 12.1% higher compared with April 2018 and 1.0% lower than in May 2017.

Jeremy Leaf, north London estate agent and former RICS residential chairman, commented: "As always, it is the number of transactions and their direction of travel which is more relevant to us on the high street than house prices as a test of market strength. These figures are no exception and show activity encouragingly increasing but frustratingly not by as much as we would have expected at this time of year.

"Listings are on the up but once again it is only those buyers and sellers recognising the new reality in this highly price-sensitive market who are moving on. Certainly, the prospect of a further, albeit modest, rise in interest rates being deferred is certainly not doing the market any harm."

Mike Scott, chief property analyst at Yopa, added: "HMRC confirms that the market has recovered from its brief downturn at the end of the first quarter, which was probably due to the unusually bad winter weather. The number of house sales in May was only 0.5% down on the same month last year. The figure for the year to date is 4% down on the same period in 2017, thanks to that fall in the early spring numbers, so the year as a whole may end up around 2% down on the previous year, with around 1.2 million house sales in total.

"These numbers, along with other recent statistics, show that the housing market remains steady, with the number of houses sold staying roughly level and prices rising slightly slower than average earnings. There seems no reason why it can’t continue like this at least for the rest of this year, unless some change in the wider economy causes it to turn up or down."