House prices not budging, says RICS, amidst the nonsense

Here we go again: our old friend the monthly RICS report is out, plumbing such depths of mystification that it makes the off-side rule look simple.

Even the likes of the Daily Telegraph clearly can’t understand the RICS jargon. Nor, to be fair, can the many commentators who have filled the EAT inbox with cries of “It’s good news”.

Yesterday, the Telegraph report was headed: “House price boost as HIPs scrapped.”

“House prices continued to edge up last month,” said the story confidently.

The RICS survey does not, of course, report actual prices, but the sentiments of surveyors.

So, what did it actually say? EAT attempts to translate the untranslatable.

 
In May, “22% more chartered surveyors reported a rise than a fall in house prices, up from 19% in April,” says the RICS.
 
No, we don’t know what this means either. But we agree, it seems to give the impression that prices are on the up.

Persevere to the chart below the blurb and you feel that the RICS doesn’t grasp its own mystifying data either.

There – and I’m afraid it’s "not seasonally adjusted", whatever that means – it says that over the three months from March to May, 32% of surveyors reported a price rise, 6% reported a price fall, and 62% thought they had stayed exactly the same.

At last, something we can understand: MOST SURVEYORS THINK PRICES HAVE NOT CHANGED.

EAT’s warning to headline writers: when you see the RICS survey next time, be very afraid.

It is written by aliens, for aliens, and the world as we know it is about to be invaded by creatures from a non-humanoid planet. Actually, given that we are now in the crop circle season, we knew that already, without the RICS people trying to communicate with us.

Anyway, now see the next story . . .