Outlook for housing returns to negativity as sales remain flat: RICS

Its data shows that some of the improvement seen in near term expectations series last month has been partly reversed.

In particular, the outlook for prices three months ahead has turned negative, while respondents envisage sales remaining flat over the same time frame.

Sentiment is now only modestly positive regarding the twelve month outlook, with a national net balance of just +12% of respondents expecting sales to rise over the year ahead.

New buyer enquiries picked up slightly for the second consecutive month in July, although this has yet to feed into any meaningful increase in agreed sales.

However some regions saw a stronger sales trend, with respondents across the North East and the West Midlands in particular reporting a solid pick-up during July.

New instructions to sell were unchanged for the second successive report, following a string of eleven consecutive monthly declines in fresh listings beforehand. Even so, respondents continue to report that the volume of market appraisals undertaken over the month was down on the same period of last year. RICS says there is little prospect of a sustained rise in supply coming onto the market in the immediate future.