11
May
Housing market continues to pick up according to the RICS
The market is becoming more buoyant surveyors suggest. The UK's
property market is benefiting from its normal spring pick up, the
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said.
Its latest monthly survey of 245 members who work as estate
agents suggests that prices are still going up.
In April, 17% more surveyors said prices were rising rather than
falling, up from 9% in March.
Sales have picked up very slightly as well, Rics reported.
The average number of homes sold per surveyor rose to 17.4 over
the three months to the end of April.
A rise in the number of homes being put up for sale again
outstripped the increase in enquiries from potential new buyers,
which might suggest downward pressure on prices in the coming
months.
But overall, Rics said its members had become much more
optimistic about both sales and prices.
"The start of spring has seen renewed optimism with the good
weather improving sentiment and surveyors expecting an increase in
both sales and house prices," said Rics spokesman Jeremy Leaf.
"The housing market often sees an increase in new instructions
in the early part of the year with sales boosted in the spring and
this year has been no exception," he added.
Regional variation
The feedback from Rics members contrasts with other recent reports
on the state of the property market.
Although prices have risen noticeably in the past year, the
upward trend has been easing off in recent months, according to
lenders such as the Halifax and Nationwide.
Sales have been distinctly sluggish too across the UK.
Although slightly higher than in the first three months of 2009,
sales were still lower than in the first quarter of any year since
statistics were first kept in their present form by HM Revenue
& Customs in 1977.
According to Rics, whether prices are rising or falling depends
very much on where you live.
They have been rising fastest in London and the South East, but
are falling in Yorkshire, Humberside, Wales and Northern
Ireland.