The number of sales agreed for new build homes has fallen by 21% between 2019 and 2024, TwentyCi has revealed.

Research by the data analytics firm, which provides property and home mover data, found that the number of sales agreed among resale properties increased by 6% across the same five-year period.

TwentyCi said that the lower number of new build agreed sales is "unrelated to supply" because the volume of these instructions in the market has increased by 65% year-on-year.

The firm has concluded that the price premium of new builds is behind the reduction in demand.

Head of AVM and developer sales at TwentyCi, Mark Goodrich, said: "Over the last three months, the UK average asking price was £497,939 for a new build and £425,130 for an existing property. That’s a value of around £72,800 more for a brand new home, money which could instead help boost the value of a resale home with home improvements or renovations. 

"Buyers’ affordability has been heavily impacted by interest rate rises and the removal of schemes such as Help to Buy in recent years. Both of these factors mean new builds will be assessed by buyers very differently now compared with 2019.

"From 1 April 2025, stamp duty will revert to the pre-September 2022 levels meaning that the 0% threshold is back to £300,000 for first time buyers from its current threshold of £425,000. It will be interesting to see if developers choose to incentivise first time buyers after this date."

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