March 9, 2011 | Author

Author Alec Hanson

"Demand Stabilises" says RICS Survey

RICS, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surevyors, has released it’s monthly survey results. Key points from the survey is:

Headline Price Balance* improves – yet remains nagative
New instructions rise and new enquiries stablise
London bucks the trend by reporting rising prices

The headline net price balance (Proportion of surveyors reporting a rise in prices minus those reporting a fall) continued to improve, but still indicates falling prices overall, with 31% of surveyors seeing a fall in prices against 11% seeing a rise. That being said 56% of surveyors have seen house prices remain static.

Those surevyors who did see price falls, reported only small downward pressure with between 0-2% reduction.

“Although negative, the headline net price balance has now improved for four months in succession and stands at its best level since July last year,” Rics said.

Not suprisingly London bucked the trend across the UK by reporting a positive price balance, i.e. more surevyors reported a rise in prices than reported a fall in prices.

For new buyer enquiries London and Scotland led the way with strong healthy postive balances, as opposed to the East Midlands and North West that saw fairly large negative balances of new buyers.

For more information read the full report: http://www.rics.org/site/download_feed.aspx?fileID=8970&fileExtension=PDF

Do you want to know what 2011 has in store? Download the Just Do Property 2011 Property Market Predictions eBook: http://www.justdoproperty.co.uk/ebooks/expert-predictions-2011-property-2-3835

*Balance = Proportion of surveyors reporting a rise in prices minus those reporting a fall (if 30% reported a rise and 5% reported a fall, the unadjusted balance will be 25%)