New research by digital data company Moverly suggests the housing market may be in for a bumper next five years in terms of transactions and capital appreciation. 

The firm analysed the average number of annual UK residential property transactions seen each decade from 1990 to the present day to gain insight into how the strain placed on the UK property market has evolved over the years.

During the 1990s, a total of 12.935m homes were sold across the UK, equating to an average of 1.293 transactions for each of the 10 years. This level of market activity accelerated in the 2000s, with 1.405m homes sold on average each year,  an increase of 8.6% versus the previous decade despite the market turmoil seen in 2008 as a result of the global financial crisis.

However, the impact of the market crash seen in 2008 left its mark the following decade with just 11.036m homes sold across the UK during the 2010s, equating to an average of 1.104m, per year, with this average annual total sitting -22% below the previous decade.

Now, as we approach the halfway point of the 2020s, transaction numbers appear to be making a strong recovery.

In less than five years, the UK has seen an estimated 5.337m residential transactions. This is equivalent to an average of 1.186m per year, which currently marks a 7.5% increase versus the previous decade.

Moverly chief executive Gemma Young says: “These positive figures come despite the fact that the property market has had to weather a period of prolonged uncertainty spurred by higher interest rates and now that we’ve weathered the storm and are heading in the right direction, the market looks set to continue performing well over the coming years. “We’re currently on course for a very strong decade where transaction levels are concerned and this means that property professionals are likely to have a more consistently heavy workload than they have carried for a long time. This is going to put real strain on the current transaction processes, and could lead to more of the backlogs and bottlenecks that we’ve seen many times in the past.”