As per the 19th July, triggered by a confirmation from CBRE in line with RICS guidance that the Material Valuation Uncertainty Clause for UK residential property can be removed, the Fund re-opened for dealing. Last month I talked about how the re-opening of estate agencies has led to increased demand – this has now been translated into actual deals, with agreed house sales 32% ahead of last year (according to Zoopla), and transactional data seemingly being boosted further by the recent SDLT holiday announcement by The Chancellor on 8th July 2020. Furthermore, Rightmove’s research indicates that average asking prices of property coming to market in Britain hit a record, 2.4% higher than in March pre-lockdown, whilst the 3.7% annual rate of increase is the highest since December 2016. In a further sign of a return to normality, HM Land Registry started publishing transaction figures for the period of March to June. Based on that still limited dataset, LSL Acadata reported an annual house price change of + 0.9% to May 2020.