FOI reference: FOI-2025-2587
You asked
I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 regarding the proportion of property purchases in the UK that were new builds over the last five years.
Specifically, I would like to request:
- The total number of residential properties purchased in the UK each year from 2020 to 2024.
- The total number of new build properties purchased in the UK each year from 2020 to 2024.
- The percentage of all property purchases that were new builds for each of these years.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry relating to the proportion of property purchases in the UK that were new builds over the last five years.
As part of the datasets in our Housing affordability in England and Wales bulletin, we publish the number of residential property sales including for newly built dwellings.
However, the data are only for England and Wales and the latest published data are for year ending March 2024 (on 24 March 2025 we plan to publish an update to year ending September 2024).
Additionally the data only include properties sold in HM Land Registry Price Paid Data Category A “Standard Price Paid entry, includes single residential property sold for value”. It does not include Category B “transfers under a power of sale/repossessions, buy-to-lets (where they can be identified by a Mortgage), transfers to non-private individuals and sales where the property type is classed as Other".
We have included the data that we hold for England and Wales in the associated download.
Note: Data for calendar year 2024 are not currently held.
These figures are based on the data available when the publication was created and will likely be revised when we publish our update in March 2025.
These statistics are based on HM Land Registry Price Paid data that are publicly available.
We would recommend contacting HM Land Registry if you have any further questions about property purchase data.