Rics: Buyer interest rises but house sales continue to fall

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by Kay Murchie

The latest figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) show that despite increased interest from potential buyers, house sales continue to fall.

Falling house prices has meant that potential buyers are flooding estate agents with enquiries but over the three months to January, average sales per agent fell to an all-time low of 9.9, compared to 10 reported a month earlier.

Rics said buyer enquiries rose for the third consecutive month, with 16% more of its estate agents reporting a rise in potential buyers than a decline.

Jeremy Leaf, a spokesperson for the organisation, said the latest figures are further proof that potential buyers are looking for a bargain.

However, this interest has yet to translate into sales, say Rics but they expect transactions to improve over the next few months if the government proceeds with its recent announcement and introduces guarantees for the issuance of residential mortgage-backed securities.

Meanwhile, estate agents still have a large number of properties on their books with the average agent having 75.4 homes, according to Rics. While this is 10% lower compared with January last year, the fact remains that mortgage finance is harder to secure with lenders demanding hefty deposits.

Any borrower with less than a 25% deposit will still find it hard to secure a mortgage.

Continued falling house prices have meant that many would-be buyers continue to adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach to see how the market pans out.