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Home sales slump in London
While buyers and sellers have been exercising caution in the capital, Wales has experienced a boost in transactions since the Brexit vote
London boroughs have seen property transactions fall further than the rest of the UK since the EU Referendum vote in June 2016, according to analysis by Springbok Properties.
But the estate agent also found that many parts of Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and the North of England are now seeing more transactions than before the vote.
Using Land Registry data, the research compared the number of transactions in the two years and nine months before the Brexit vote to the same timeframe afterward.
South bears the brunt
The biggest drop in sales across the UK was in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea (-42.4%), followed by Islington (-35.4%), City of Westminster (-31.9%) and Enfield (-30.2%).
London boroughs made up the rest of the top 10, with the exception of nearby Watford (-27.5%) in Hertfordshire, in 10th place.
Other areas that recorded big slowdowns were in the South of England, like Slough (-27.2%), Oxford (-25.9%) and Brighton and Hove (-24.5%).
Rising sales
Transactions haven’t slowed down everywhere.
Two areas in Wales have seen the biggest increase in transactions since the Brexit vote, Torfaen (30.6%) and Newport (25.1%).
Other strong performers were Knowsley in Merseyside (23.5%), Antrim and Newtownabbey in Northern Ireland (21.9%), as well as East Lothian (21.8%) and Renfrewshire (21.3%), both in Scotland.
The biggest drop in transactions happened in England at -5.2%, while Northern Ireland saw the sharpest increase of 11.6%.
Wales saw an 8.4% uplift in activity, while transactions in Scotland increased by 5.7%.
CEO of Springbok Properties, Shepherd Ncube, said: “There are many pockets across the UK that have not only weathered the storm, but have actually seen more transactions since the EU Referendum then in the same time period preceding it.
“These have largely been the more affordable areas where the reality between seller expectation and what buyers are willing to pay is far smaller than the capital and surrounding areas. As a result, less indecision on the part of both buyers and sellers has seen the market continue to operate as normal while other areas have stalled.”