Housing market in the UK continues to lack momentum, latest RICS report suggests
The UK residential property market continued to lack momentum in September as demand from new buyers and sales fell again, according to the latest research. The shift in interest rate expectations has to buyer caution in a slowing market although prices are remaining positive, although the market in London and the South East is weaker, says the monthly report from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). Expectations point to a subdued near term outlook for both prices and sales and a lack of new buyers is causing a fall in sales with surveyors reported a decline in both. It means that sentiment is now flatter than any point since last year’s European Union referendum result. The data shows that in September some 20% more respondents noted a fall rather than rise in demand from would be buyers, extending the run of negative readings into a sixth month.
Alongside this, 15% more respondents reported a fall in agreed sales rather than a rise which is the lowest since July 2016. When broken down regionally, London and the South East were at the forefront of the decline in sales, but weakness in transactions was widespread during September. In fact, only Wales and the South West were cited to have seen an increase in sales, while all other parts of the UK saw sales flat Looking ahead over the next three months, there is little change anticipated in national sales activity, with expectations slipping to -1% from +7% previously. Likewise, the 12 month outlook is also flat at the national level, although respondents are a little more optimistic in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. As sales and new buyers decline, new instructions to sell were more or less stable for the second report running, having declined continuously for the past eighteen months. Consequently, average stock levels on estate agents’ books held broadly steady, albeit near record lows, at 43.3.
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