Sales activity in the Guernsey Local Market last year was at its highest level since 2011, according to the latest conveyancing statistics compiled by Unusualities of Guernsey, an independent compiler of local conveyancing statistics.
Figures reveal that there were a total of 879 Local Market transactions in 2019, comprising 701 houses and 178 flats. This was 4% more than the total recorded in 2018 and the most since 2011, when a total of 893 Local Market properties were sold.
However, these totals are still some way short of pre-financial crisis levels, when 1,238 and 1,145 Local Market properties were sold in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
Of the 879 Local Market sales last year, the median price (realty only) for the 701 houses sold was £455,000, up from the £433,875 for 2018. The median price (realty only) of the 178 flats sold in 2019 was £248,625, marginally up from the £245,700 recorded in the previous year. *
For the Guernsey Open Market, Unusualities of Guernsey recorded 71 transactions taking place during the course of 2019 – four fewer than in 2018.
It represents the second consecutive year when more than 70 Open Market properties have been sold during the course of a year – a marked change from the previous seven years, which saw fewer than 50 Open Market transactions.
Of the 71 Open Market transactions completed during 2019, the median price (realty only) of the 61 Open Market houses sold was £1,142,700, down from the £1,256,250 recorded in 2018. The 10 Open Market flats sold in 2019 had a median price (realty only) of £1,072,500. *
Carey Olsen Partner Jason Morgan (pictured), who leads the firm's property group in Guernsey, commented: "On the whole, the sales figures for both Guernsey's Local and Open Markets should be taken as a positive.
"Local Market yearly activity continues to rise from the lows we saw in 2015, while the Open Market has, for the past two years, demonstrated how Guernsey remains an attractive destination for new residents and how new tax rules introduced at the start of 2018 to encourage the relocation of HNWIs and their families to the island are beginning to have an impact."
* None of the total sales numbers quoted include inter-family or inter-company sales, transactions that are typically completed for a nominal consideration.