This increase, which includes 13 consecutive months of year on year increases, is much lower than in January, a month when these transactions went up an annual 18.1`5 and reached their highest levels for four years.
89.3% of houses bought and sold in February are freehold, and 10.7% state protected. In annual terms, the number of freehold houses went up 1.5%, whilst those protected decreased by 0.7%. 18.1% of housing transactions in February related to new builds, and 81.9% not new builds. The number of transactions for new builds went down 16.3% compared to February 2016, while those for not newly built houses went up 6.1%.
In monthly terms (February compared to January) housing transactions went down by 7.4%, in contrast to the 8% monthly upturn of the previous year.