This suggests that HIPs have not had as much of a detrimental effect on buyers as they are claimed to have had on selling activity.
Housing market analysts previously predicted a substantial rise in the number of cancellations in Q4 however this does not seem to be the case after cancellations fell from the summer's 17 per cent high to 15 per cent.
LMS admitted that it is still too soon to say to what extent this trend will continue into 2008, but believes that HIPs were a significant factor in the drop in the number of cancelled purchases.
During the second half of the year, the average number of days between notification of sale and exchange dropped by 3 to just 51 days.
Regionally, the North showed the biggest improvement since the last quarter of 2006, with the number of days taken from notification of sale to exchange dropping 6 per cent from 47 days to an average of 44
“Given the turbulence that has rocked the housing and credit markets in the last few months, it is remarkable that cancellations haven’t plummeted to unseen depths," said Dominic Toller, director of marketing & new business at LMS.
“With the volume of processed transactions down, the market tends to be more efficient. In light of this, improvements in efficiency figures from the last three months are probably due more to a decrease in the number of listings as a result of damaged investor confidence, rather than down to the full roll out of HIPs.
“There is still room for the property buying and selling process to be much more efficient and HIPs can help transaction times improve. With faster property searches for homebuyers we should start to see an improvement in efficiency."
