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Written by rosalind renshaw

Estate agents in the east of England sold less than one house a week during the last quarter of last year, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has said.

Its new survey says that both buyers and sellers are still staying out of the housing market.

In a largely pessimistic report, the RICS said the outlook remained at best mixed, after sales fell in December.

In the last three months of last year, its estate agent members sold 15.2 houses each.

But there were marked variations regionally: in East Anglia, the typical estate agent sold just ten properties in the whole of the last quarter.

The report said that lack of supply continues to be an issue, with new instructions falling.

However, new buyer inquiries fell for the seventh consecutive month in December.

Surveyors continue to report that lending constraints, particularly to first-time buyers, remain the biggest barrier to any strong improvement in the market.

The agents are also pessimistic about house prices.

However, said the RICS, “many” of its estate agent members “suggested that the market may begin to pick up again in the spring.”

David Newnes, estate agency managing director of LSL property services, owners of Your Move and Reeds Rains, said: “The last months of 2010 saw a flattening of house prices and this looks set to continue through 2011.

“The public spending cuts, along with the possibility of rising interest rates, are weighing on the minds of lenders, who have lent less money to fewer borrowers, which has caused a finance drought.

“Sellers know this and have been holding off bringing properties to the market, hoping for prices to rise later in the year.

“It largely depends on lenders, who are the gatekeepers of demand.

“If they are convinced that borrowers’ finances in the coming year will remain healthy, they are likely to increase the quantity and value of their loans and dispel the pessimism that the RICS surveyors seem to be feeling.”

Andrew Ellinas, director of central London agents Sandfords, said the RICS report did not look at micro markets. He said: “Since the peak of the market in 2007, stock in prime London has fallen by 50%. Demand is such that we are selling some properties before they are advertised and the average length of time a property is on the market is down to just seven days.

“International buyers currently account for half of all property purchases and we expect this to increase as the Euro comes under renewed pressure.

“While most property purchases in the UK are dictated by the availability of mortgage finance, 90% of all purchases in prime London are by cash-rich buyers. Subdued lending levels will therefore have little impact on property prices in prime central London.

“The RICS housing market survey, like many other house price indices, does not reflect the performance of micro-markets, instead opting for sweeping generalisations that fail to take into account prime London’s property type and buyers that set it apart from other UK cities.”

Comments

  • icon

    James, it looks like The Daily Express misread those RICS stats...
    http://themediablog.typepad.com/the-media-blog/2011/01/express-house-price-story.html

    • 21 January 2011 14:53 PM
  • icon

    Sandfords are getting boring now ... prime London, where property magically sells itself and no-one ever needs a mortgage, is an exception within an exception, a tiny bit of the market. Why not quote some of us in the real world for a change?

    • 19 January 2011 10:43 AM
  • icon

    It depends how you read these RICS reports. Yesterdays Daily Express headline was "HOUSE PRICES SET TO SOAR.....reports RICS"...

    • 19 January 2011 09:40 AM
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