Families celebrate first Christmas in homes with festive names - including Elf Cottage in Peterborough

Yorkshire Building Society analysis of Land Registry data has found nearly 600 homebuyers have thought it advent-ageous to buy homes with a popular festive word in the building or street name in 2024.

It comes as the Society predicts property transactions will have increased this year and that the positive momentum will continue into 2025, after low activity in 2023.

The analysis showed 22 properties with Christmas in the address changed hands this year, including 10 homes named ‘Christmas Cottage’ as well as Christmas Wood in Northumberland – which may mean the new owner now has space to keep reindeer.

New arrivals are hanging new sets of stockings in Christmas Pie Avenue in Guildford, Surrey, and Christmas Tree Crescent in Hockley, Essex.

Elf Cottage in Peterborough, Mistletoe House in Torquay, Yule House in Alnwick, and Festive Mansions and Rudolph Court in London all have new residents.

Holly is by far the most popular festive word found in an address. More than 500 people have bought a home with Holly in the building or street name in the last 12 months.

The Government estimates nearly 900,000 residential properties have been sold between January and October 2024.

Property transactions have been falling in recent years after a post-Covid peak. Over a million property transactions took place in 2023, 1.26 million in 2022 and 1.48 million in 2021.

Max Shepherd, group economist at Yorkshire Building Society, said:

“We estimate there will be around 1.1m property transactions in 2024, which means there’s been a decent recovery this year as rates have fallen, affordability pressures have eased and confidence has risen.

“In recent years we’ve seen more fluctuation than normal in the number of people buying and selling homes. The figure fell in 2020 because of the pandemic, then stamp duty relief gave the market a boost in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, because of high interest rates, we saw the lowest amount of activity since the credit crunch.

“We expect that lower interest rates, wage growth and momentum will mean more homes changing hands next year – around 1.17m based on current expectations.”