Analysis of the Land Registry, which records properties bought and sold, revealed more than 2% fewer homes changed hands last year across both the countries.
However, the data also highlighted the regions of England and Wales which were hardest hit by the slump in sales and revealed some local authority areas experienced drops of as much as 27% in the number of transactions.
According to Project Etopia, the modular smart homes provider which carried out the research, nearly two thirds of local authority areas in England and Wales saw plummeting sales in 2018.
Among those local council areas experiencing the steepest falls were Stevenage, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Cambridge. The London boroughs of Croydon and Tower Hamlets were the worst affected in the capital, experiencing the biggest slumps in house sales.
The areas outside London with the highest number of transactions, meanwhile, were Chorley, Hull and Lincoln. In the capital, the City of London saw the biggest increase of any local authority area in England and Wales, although it started from a low base.
Joseph Daniels, CEO of Project Etopia said it might not be immediately obvious what transaction levels had to do with the housing crisis – but there was actually a strong link.
“Lack of housing stock means we’re on a merry-go-round of gyrating house prices in this country,” he said.
“This feeds into massive price gains that occur over just a few years, causing people to think of their house as an investment not a home.
“When storm clouds gather on the horizon they then guard their most valuable possessions by sitting tight. It’s easy to forget that there were 231,690 fewer homes sold in the last financial year than a decade earlier.”
He added that if we had more stock the ‘boom and bust’ would be a thing of the past and the sands wouldn’t keep shifting under developers’ feet.
The 10 towns and cities with the steepest falls in transaction levels outside Greater London: [Source: Project Etopia]
| Town/City | Transactions 2018* |
| Stevenage | -27.5% |
| Newcastle-under-Lyme | -16.2% |
| Cambridge | -16.0% |
| Merthyr Tydfil | -15.1% |
| Wellingborough | -13.7% |
| Brighton | -13.3% |
| Gosport | -12.3% |
| Runnymede | -12.0% |
| Bedford | -11.8% |
| Eastbourne | -11.6% |
The 10 towns and cities with the biggest rises in transaction levels outside Greater London: [Source: Project Etopia]
| Town/City | Transactions 2018* |
| Chorley | 17.0% |
| Hull | 13.9% |
| Lincoln | 12.3% |
| Liverpool | 10.8% |
| Rochdale | 9.4% |
| Worcester | 8.4% |
| Carlisle | 8.2% |
| Tewkesbury | 7.8% |
| Mansfield | 7.4% |
| Stafford | 7.1% |
