The level of completed UK house sales stabilised towards the end of last year, but the overall property market outlook remains mixed, new research has shown.
According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ (RICS) latest UK Housing Market survey, in the three months to December 2023, the number of closed sales averaged at 15.2 per surveyor.
Completed transactions were found to be highest in the East Midlands and Humber regions, with sales figures of 19 and 18 respectively, while East Anglia recorded the lowest number of done deals.
While harsh winter conditions stalled estate agents’ progress in December, buyers were not deterred by the cold across the quarter as a whole.
Jeremy Leaf, spokesperson for RICS, commented: “Although bad weather hit the housing market during December, sales levels have remained stable.
“While lack of supply and, more importantly, demand continues to impact heavily, surveyor sentiment does appear more positive for the coming months,” he added.
Leaf went on to say that the “key issue now is mortgage finance”, though with analysts suggesting that lending constraints are unlikely to ease any time soon, “it is hard to envisage a meaningful increase in sales levels in the near term”.
More positively, surveyors’ expectations for sales over the coming months edged up, with eight per cent more RICS members expecting sales to rise, rather than fall, in the coming weeks.
Want to be the first to know when we break a story? Follow @AboutUs on Twitter.
