Savills is expecting the number of residential property transactions in the UK to remain stubbornly low over the next five years amid Brexit uncertainty.

Five-year forecasts released by the agent are based on a drop in sales volumes of 6.9% since the Brexit vote and the agent is predicting the market will fall a further 1% by 2023. It said transactions have fallen from 1.61m in 2007 to around 1.14m this year, and predicts they will lift only very slightly to 1.17m in 2019 before falling to 1.16m in 2020 and then rising to 1.17m in 2021 before dropping again to 1.14m in 2022.

Savills is then predicting transactions will rise again over the following years, hitting 1.16m in 2023 – in other words, barely moving. The firm says that sales activity within the property market will only be sustained by cash buyers and Government first-time buyer schemes, as well as the bank of mum and dad.

However, it is also predicting that first-time buyer volumes will fall 2.7% overall during the next five years. The forecast is even less positive for buy-to-let investors with Savills predicting a 23% drop in activity by 2023 – which will in turn push rents up by 13.7% during the same period, it forecasts.