Housing market begins new year in subdued fashion

The West Midlands housing market has started the new year in a similar vein to the end of 2017, according to latest figures.

The January 2018 RICS UK Residential Market Survey shows new buyer enquiries, instructions and sales all continuing to drift lower.

The three-month sales expectations also point to further declines in the coming months.

Nevertheless, RICS said there was a little more optimism regarding the twelve-month sales projections, which it said were modestly positive for the West Midlands.

For a fifth month in succession, new buyer enquiries in the region in January declined, with 11% more respondents reporting a fall rather than rise. Similarly, newly agreed sales also slipped, extending the run of negative readings back to December 2016.

Going forward, RICS said this subdued sales trend was expected to continue in the near term with 18% more respondents expecting sales activity to fall in the coming three months.

However, respondents said they envisaged sales slightly picking-up for the West Midlands over the next twelve months as a whole.

Meanwhile, there is no sign of an upturn in the flow of properties coming to the market with 40% more respondents seeing a further decline in new instructions this January.

Nationally, respondents were asked about the pipeline for instructions going forward. At a headline level, RICS said the situation did not appear to be improving, with 10% more respondents noting the number of valuations undertaken over the month was below the figure for the equivalent period of last year.

The price balance for the West Midlands remained positive in January with 28% more respondents seeing a rise in prices across the region. UK wide there has been modest price growth.

Moving to near term expectations, RICS said price expectations over the next three months remained flat, pointing to the pace of growth potentially easing in the region.

However, looking at the twelve-month picture, expectations were positive in the West Midlands. In the region’s lettings market, tenant demand edged up in the three months to January, while landlord instructions fell back slightly. This imbalance prompted positive rental growth expectations for the near term.

Andrew Grant, of Andrew Grant in Worcester, said: “There is a continuing shortage of new instructions coming onto the market which is stagnating activity.”

Colin Townsend, of John Goodwin in Malvern, confirmed it had been a slow start to the year particularly on new instructions.

“However, there are plenty of new buyers entering the market and the last week of the month saw an upturn in activity,” he said.

John Andrews, of Doolittle & Dalley, said: “A quieter market over the last month due to shortage of new stock. More property will come up for sale as spring approaches with strong demand anticipated.”