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Budget 2009: House sales soar in March
Wednesday 22nd April 2009, 11:20AM BST.
A 40 per cent rise in house sales in March is welcome news for Alistair Darling as he prepares to unveil his 2009 Budget statement.
In the last month there were 60,000 new property transactions each worth over £40,000, compared with just 43,000 in February.
The figures follow news from the Bank of England on Tuesday that mortgage lending had also picked up.
In separate research, the Council of Mortgage Lenders revealed a 16 per cent increase in lending from February to March.
Commenting, a spokesperson for the CML said: “There are some signs of a recovery but it’s only at a very small and delicate stage. We would like to see data over a longer period of time than what we have seen so far before we can say the housing market is recovering.”
When seasonally adjusted, the figures from HMRC still showed an increase from 54,000 sales to 61,000 sales. Sales of homes in England rose 40 per cent, from 37,000 in February, to 51,000 in March.
Figures for the number of non-residential properties sold also increased, from 6,000 in February to 9,000 in March.
There is normally a rise in property sales during the spring, when new buyers traditionally flock to the market.
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