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Despite an uncertain economy due too the lockdown, the housing market in England and Wales has seen over £171 billion in residential property sales in the last year.
The lockdown and the stamp duty holiday has driven the desire to move for many people, driving up the asking prices in London, according to the Standard.
Estate agents Keller Williams analysed residential property sales that completed during 2020 to see just how the stamp duty holiday has impacted the housing market, which revealed a total of £171.7 billion in sales, which despite it being a decline of around 38 per cent from 2019, it is considered to be an extremely respectable performance.
London dominated the top spots for the most valuable pockets of property on the market, with Westminster experiencing the highest sum of property sold prices, a total of £2.9 billion, Kensington and Chelsea sharing second place with £2.7 billion, and Wandsworth securing third with £2.5 billion worth of property sold in 2020.
However, London far from dominates the top 20 most valuable areas of the property market in England and Wales. Cornwall, with a total of £2 billion in property sold, is the most valuable market outside of London, and Birmingham ranked high with £1.8 billion.
Leeds (£1.75bn) Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (£1.7bn), Wiltshire (£1.5bn), Bristol (£1.45bn), Dorset (£1.45bn) and Cheshire East (£1.4bn) also ranked as some of the most valuable areas of the property market outside of London.
Ben Taylor, CEO of Keller Williams UK, commented that a 38 per cent reduction clearly shows the detrimental effect the pandemic has had on the market, particularly with the uncertainty of Brexit having already caused a decline in 2019.
“However, when considering all of these factors, it makes the late rally shown by the property market in the wake of a stamp duty holiday introduction all the more impressive,” he said.
“To think that this market revival still saw £171.7bn worth of residential property sold in what is a relatively short period of time is actually quite remarkable.”
