The report, published by the Homes and Communities Agency using data from house prices indices, lenders and construction companies, shows that residential sales surged forward strongly in March.
It also shows that gross mortgage lending continues to see robust growth with levels over one third higher than a year ago and private sector house building investment continues to increase, but public sector investment has stalled. The value of Greenfield residential development land is slipping, but urban land is increasing.
A breakdown of the figures shows that there were 141,310 residential property transactions in England in March 2016, which is 80.6% higher than one year earlier. It says that this sharp uptick could have been the result of by buy to let buyers having brought forward purchases in order to avoid increased Stamp Duty tax liabilities from April.
There were a total of 1,135,830 transactions in England in the year to the end of March 2016. This is 9.9% higher than in the previous 12 months. Aside from this the spike in the data in March, the seasonally adjusted monthly total has been moving strongly upwards for the past year.
The total stock of property for sale remains historically low. In England and Wales overall, the number of properties entering the market was down 6% in March compared to a year before and the supply shortage is most keenly felt in the West Midlands and the South West regions where, respectively, 12% and 11% less stock was registered for sale with estate agents compared to March 2015.
Greater London was the only English region with increased numbers of homes coming to the market, up 6% on the same month in 2015.
Gross mortgage lending reached an estimated £25.7 billion in March. This is 59% higher than March 2015 and gross mortgage lending for the first quarter of this year was an estimated £62.1bn, which is 39% higher than the first three months of 2015.
There were a total of over 23.5 million dwellings in England in 2015, which is 704,000 or 3.1% more than in 2010. The number of private sector homes had increased by 649,000 or 3.5%, and there were over 209,000 or 9.3% more private registered provider homes. But the number of Local Authority owned homes fell by nearly 143,000 or 8% over the same period.
The Output in the Construction Industry indices show the total value of new housing development in Great Britain is unchanged in the fourth quarter of 2015 compared to the same quarter in 2014.
The trend in the private sector has been of sustained steady increase over at least three years. The public new housing sector enjoyed expansion during 2013 and most of 2014 but then had four quarters of shrinking output from the fourth quarter of 2014 while the final quarter of 2015 saw a slight upturn.
In the first quarter of 2016, the number of NHBC new home registrations in the UK was 36,566, a 9% decrease on the same period last year. Some 28,398 new homes were registered in the private sector, a 7% decrease on a year ago, with the public and affordable sector down 15% with 8,168 new homes registered.
For the financial year 2015/2016, however, registrations remained in line with the previous year with 152,329 new home registrations marginally ahead of the 152,262 registered in 2014/2015.
Greenfield development land prices in England slipped by 2.1% in the fourth quarter of 2015, taking the annual change in prices to -4.9%. Urban development land prices, however, rose by 2.5% in the quarter, taking annual growth for urban sites to 11.9%.
The report says that the price growth differential reflects increasing demand in many key cities and commuter towns, particularly in regional hubs. This demand has picked up momentum in the last year, lagging the pickup in demand seen in the Greenfield market two years ago
House price growth has, by most measures, returned to all English regions. But the house price divide between the south eastern regions and the rest of the country has widened further since the start of 2016.
DCLG data for the last 24 months shows a 6% increase in the total number of new homes started in England per year. But there are regional differences with some regions having started increasing numbers of homes whilst starts have decreased elsewhere.
