UK housing market slows as buyers retreat, uncertainty swirls, RICS survey shows

By Suban Abdulla

LONDON (Reuters) -British house prices showed the most widespread falls in more than a year-and-a-half in August as new buyer demand weakened against a backdrop of a weak economy, high inflation and uncertain interest rate outlook, a survey showed on Thursday.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' house price balance, which measures the difference between the percentage of surveyors seeing rises and falls in house prices, fell to -19 in August from -13 in July, its weakest since January 2024 when it stood at -23.

Thursday's house price balance was below the -10 forecast in a Reuters poll of economists and contrasts with a slightly more upbeat picture for July from mortgage lenders Halifax and Nationwide, who both reported prices broadly flat on the month and up about 2% on the year.

RICS said new buyer enquiries dropped to a net balance of -17 last month, down from -7 in July and the lowest since May. Agreed sales slipped to -24 in August from -17 the month before.

"With buyer demand easing and agreed sales in decline, the housing market is clearly feeling the effects of ongoing uncertainty," Tarrant Parsons, RICS' head of market research and analysis, said.

"Concerns over the wider economic and fiscal outlook, combined with questions around the future path of interest rates amid stubbornly high inflation, are weighing on sentiment at this time."

In July, Britain had the highest inflation among large, advanced economies at 3.8%, and the Bank of England forecasts it will peak at 4% this month before slowly returning to its 2% target by the second quarter of 2027.

Finance minister Rachel Reeves, who is expected to raise taxes when she delivers her annual budget on November 26, said on Tuesday that the British government should focus on helping the BoE lower inflation and boosting growth.

Official figures due on Friday are tipped to show Britain's economy stagnated in July after growing 0.4% in June.

In the rental market, the RICS survey showed that tenant demand continued to outstrip landlord instructions, which fell by the most since April 2020 at a net balance of -37%, limiting the number of available homes to rent. A net balance of +27% surveyors expect to see a rise in rental prices over the coming three months.

(Reporting by Suban Abdulla; editing by David Milliken)