British government’s ongoing lockdown measures to prevent the spread of the [coronavirus][1] are continuing to stifle activity across the housing market, survey results from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, or RICS, showed Thursday.
The house price balance dropped into a negative zone after three successive months of positive readings in April. The house price balance came in at -21 percent compared to economists’ forecast of -38 percent.
The near-term price expectations index fell deeply into negative 72 percent. Nonetheless, only -26 percent forecast a fall in house prices in a year’s time.
A net balance of -93 percent of contributors reported a decline in new buyer enquiries in April. At the same time, new instructions to sell continued to fall back significantly with the latest net balance of -96 percent, the weakest since the inception of this series in April 1999.
Consequently, the newly agreed sales net balance decreased to -92 percent from -68 percent.
The survey showed that about 80 percent of contributors said they have seen buyers or sellers pulling out of transactions.
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