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RICS: House price falls sweep country
15 May 2008 11:30
House prices dipped right across the country last month, according to new Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) data, but these falls remained relatively small.
The number of surveyors recording a fall rather than a rise in house prices rose from 79.4 per cent in March to 95.1 per cent in April, with reports of declines unanimous in East Anglia, the north and the north-west and even Scotland showing a negative balance.
Yet RICS stressed that price drops are still fairly modest, as a lack of new instructions to sell and the absence as yet of an explosion of distressed sales is currently keeping supply down, with average stocks of homes per surveyor falling from 90.2 to 86.6 last month.
However, demand is also weakening, with 68 per cent more surveyors noting a fall rather than a rise in new buyer enquiries in April, up from 49 per cent the month before, while the ratio of sales to unsold property decreased from 24.6 to 21.1 per cent.
RICS spokesperson Ian Perry commented that the real issue of concern here is the falling number of transactions, which he warned could have wider implications and he therefore called on the Bank of England to reduce the base rate next month.
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