£1.4 billion worth of property sold in Cheshire East in 2020

Research by national estate agent, Keller Williams UK, has revealed Cheshire East to be one of the top 20 areas in England for 2020 property sales.

While the majority of property hotspots in England and Wales were in London when compared by total value of property sold, Cheshire East ranked, along with Cornwall, Dorset and Wiltshire, as one of the more rural hotspots. In 2020, £1.406 billion of property was sold in the borough, with a median sale price of just £220,000.

Keller Williams conducted the research to identify the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and stamp duty holiday on the housing market, which saw a 38% decline by value in sales compared to 2019. Estate agents were closed for much of the first lockdown in 2019, bringing the property market to a complete standstill. CEO of Keller Williams UK, Ben Taylor, commented:

Despite the radical market turn around spurred by the reopening of the property sector and the introduction of a stamp duty holiday, Covid has clearly had a lasting impact on the market in 2020.

While the average house price has surged this year, a -38% reduction in the total value of property sold demonstrates the detrimental impact the pandemic had on market activity over the last year.

This is even more significant when you consider that it’s compared with a 2019 market that was already operating sluggishly due to Brexit uncertainty.

However, when considering all of these factors, it makes the late rally shown by the property market in the wake of a stamp duty holiday introduction all the more impressive. To think that this market revival still saw £171.7bn worth of residential property sold in what is a relatively short period of time is actually quite remarkable.”

The research has been published on the same day as the UK House Price Index reported an 8.5% annual increase in house prices nationwide over 2020. In the North-west, prices climbed even higher, with the region seeing an unprecedented 11.2% growth.