The number of residential transactions in September in the UK was 68.4% higher than a year before, government figures show.

Seasonally adjusted, there were 160,950 transactions this September, which is also 67.5% higher than the number seen in August 2021.

This is the highest September total recorded since the government first started to note these metrics in April 2005.

The data also shows that there were 10,420 non-residential transactions in September, which is 20.2% higher than registered in September 2020 and 8.4% more on a monthly basis.

SPI Capital chief executive Anna Clare Harper comments: “This boom in transactions – the highest level in over 10 years – is unsurprising.

“Investors, homeowners, solicitors and banks pushed hard to get transactions done before the end of September, so that buyers could make the most of the final stage of the temporary stamp duty relief.

“This was combined with lockdown-led upsizing, a flight to safer assets and cheap finance due to long-term low interest rates, all encouraging people to buy a home.

“So what next? Unlike in the stock market or cryptocurrencies, where Bitcoin has just reached a new high too, people don’t tend to sell at a lower price than they paid, unless they really need to.

“Many homeowners are fixing their rates now, since interest rates (and therefore mortgage repayments) are low, and expected to remain so. This makes a mass sell-off from property owners seems unlikely.

“As a result, although it’s expected that transactions will slow over the next year, prices are not expected to fall.”

And Yopa chief analyst Mike Scott says: “There will inevitably be a sharp fall in the number of sales in October, since many of the sales that would normally have occurred this month will have been rushed forward to beat the tax deadline, but based on the experience of similar deadlines in March and June this year, the numbers should quickly return to normal.”