Home moves to shrink by 200,000 following Brexit vote, says L&G chief

The Brexit vote may lead to some 200,000 transactions being knocked off the number of homes sold this year according to Legal and General Building Services’ managing director Steve Goodall. Speaking at a recent conference organised by Mortgage Finance Gazette, Goodall (pictured, below) said the UK long-term average was 1.5 million transactions a year, topping out at 1.6 million during the “heady heights” of 2006/7 before the financial crisis, then dipping down to 900,000 and now running at 1.2 million. “Because of what happened over the summer – i.e. the referendum vote for the UK to leave Europe – this year we night see a flatlining of transactions,” he said. “The equivalent number of transactions over the last three months may have actually dropped to around one million per annum.” Goodall also said transactions should be much higher overall, pointing out that current levels of transaction should be measured against the growing number of households in the UK. Therefore, he calculates, the market should be running at 1.7 or 1.8 million transactions a year not 1.2 million. “There are more people yet there are fewer housing transactions,” he said. The conference was attended by a mixed bag of industry leaders including Karl…