Just over 15 completed sales were made per surveyor in the three months to May, down from around 25 sales made over the same period in 2007.
The reluctance of many banks to offer people mortgages they can afford is behind the "stagnant" market, RICS said, although it expects sales to pick up over the summer months.
Lenders have been tightening their borrowing criteria amid the weak economy and the ongoing eurozone crisis, making it harder for people to take out a mortgage, with several putting up their rates for both new borrowers and a total of more than a million existing ones.
There were 51,823 approvals for house purchase in April worth £7.6bn, a 1.5pc increase on the previous month, but still under the previous six-month average, according to recent Bank of England figures.
The figures have been modestly creeping up after hitting a seven-month low in February, just before a two-year stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers ended the following month.
No comments:
Post a Comment