According to the latest figures released by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), property transactions were down 4.3% in October, compared to the previous month. However, this month’s figure is 3.2% higher compared to the same month last year.

The provisional seasonally adjusted UK property transaction count for October 2014 was 98,490 residential and 9,400 non-residential transactions.

The pattern since the beginning of 2013/14 has been of a general month-on-month increase in transactions until February 2014, then a gradual decrease followed by a flattening out of transaction numbers.

Duncan Kreeger, director at West One Loans, comments: “The signs have been visible for some time that the property market is starting to cool and this is confirmed by the seasonally-adjusted figures for October which represent the poorest-performing month since last November. We may have progressed since the dark days of the recession, but the foot has certainly eased off the accelerator since earlier this year.”