The north’s property market has experienced the weakest first quarter for home sales since 2015, new market data from HMRC suggests.
A total of 5,280 residential property sales were tracked by the monthly data release, which records completed transactions worth £40,000 or more.
It compared to 5,400 in the same three-month period last year and 6,040 in 2019.
While the provisional figure for March shows market activity improving in each of the first three months of 2024, the 2,080 transactions recorded by HMRC last month was weak by recent standards.
It was just slightly higher than the 1,990 sales recorded in March 2020, when the housing market was significantly disrupted by the UK Government’s ‘stay at home’ advice in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
March 2020 aside, the 2,080 home transactions recoded by HMRC last month was the weakest since March 2015.
The slowdown in sales has largely been attributed to the shortage of housing stock in the north, coupled with the rising cost of borrowing.
Just 5,379 new dwellings were completed in Northern Ireland last year, around 2,000 below the 7,416 homes built in 2021.
The official house price index put the average price of a home at £177,611 at the end of 2023, 1.4% higher than 12 months earlier.
Activity in the commercial property sector also remained relatively quiet in the first quarter, according to HMRC’s tracker.
A total of 810 non-residential property sales were recorded in the first three months of 2024.
That compared to 950 during in the same quarter last year, but on par with the first quarter of 2021.
