October saw 98,490 residential transactions, down from 102,950 in September. However, this remains 3.2% higher than the 95,390 recorded in October last year.
Residential transactions peaked at around 150,000 in early 2007 before the market crashed, while they fell as low as 51,630 by January 2009.
After a slow but steady upward trend transactions levelled out during 2014 and averaged around 100,000 a month.
There were also 9,400 non-residential transactions in October, up from 9,390 in September and 9,350 in August.
Duncan Kreeger, director of West One Loans, said: “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.
“This highlights the importance of addressing the UK’s undersupply of housing. Buyer demand may have mellowed lately, but there still isn’t a consistent supply of new properties coming onto the market to fuel activity.
"Construction figures are nudging upwards, but not at the rate required to make real headway and developers need more assistance to conquer the shortfall. Unless something significant is done to help them – or mainstream lenders start following the lead of their alternative counterparts – we will be forever stuck in the groundhog day of improvement followed by bottlenecks.”
