UK March House Price Survey Suggests Price Flattening

-MNI: UK RICS Feb-March Price Balance 0; March Agreed Sales Balance -17%

By Jai Lakhani

     LONDON (MNI) - A survey of UK property surveyors published Thursday showed

housing demand continue to deteriorate alongside supply, leading to an unchanged

price balance once more. 

     The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) January through March

price balance was zero, the joint lowest return for this indicator since

February 2013. 

     The March RICS New Buyer enquiries measure, which tends to be a good

front-runner for Bank of England mortgage approvals, fell for a twelfth

consecutive month with 17% more respondents seeing a fall rather than rise over

the month in a trend dating back to March 2017. 

     Demand is expected to remain weak due to not only a lack of affordability

but a lack of new instructions coming onto the market which fell for the seventh

consecutive month coming in at -17%. 

     "The latest RICS results provide little encouragement that the drop in

housing market activity is likely to be reversed anytime soon." the RICS release

said.

     The near term outlook remained flat and the three month price expectations

balance stuck in neutral territory (balances between -5% and +5%) in every month

since November last year. 

     As a result, the net agreed sales balance (which leads official transaction

data), came in at -20%.

     Falling demand has been directly offsetting falling supply. 

     The headline March RICS Price Balance reading of zero was the tenth month

in a row that it was between 0 and +9%. However, 17% of contributors expect a

pick up in sales over the next year at the national level with a net balance of

47% anticipating prices to be higher in the next twelve months. 

     The RICS survey is a leading housing market indicator as it captures

initial trends in both buyer demand and supply of houses coming onto the market.

--MNI London Bureau; +44 203 865 3828; email: jai.lakhani@marketnews.com

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2223; email: david.robinson@marketnews.com

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