May 2006 - Property Market
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors have just released the residential housing market survey for May 2006, which is one of the property market's most influential and authoritative housing market reports.
In May 2006, the property market again saw significant price rises, for the seventh consecutive month the RICS report. The healthy economic climate once again consolidated demand which has not been dampened by an un-settled stock market and concerns that the government may soon raise interest rates, with implications on the cost of borrowing. There has also been an increase in the number of sellers coming to the market (18%) in light of further rising unemployment and the introduction of Home Information packs (HIPs) on June 1st 2007 and the recent legislation related to Housing in Multiple Occupation (HMO).
Despite a rise in sales in May 2006, the market has seen a rise in the available stock of properties for sale, representing 72.4 properties for sale on average per chartered surveyor against 71.7 in February of 2006, with a corresponding 12th consecutive month of rises in the number of purchase enquiries received.
20% more chartered surveyors recorded a rise as opposed to a fall in house prices in May 2006 against an already healthy 15% that was recorder last month. This upward trend lends itself to reaffirming the improvement of the UK's property market based on 2005's performance with the largest rises being seen in London and Scotland, and moderate rises or flat lines elsewhere.
The RICS contacts chartered surveyors around Surrey each month and asks for their point of view on the local market, overall comments from Surrey based surveyors were very good sales wise, although it was noticeable that many agents were reporting a lack of decent properties leading to the decent instruction being converted to completed sales fairly quickly.
