London house prices fall despite market’s coronavirus recovery
08-13-2020
Emily Nicolle
London house prices continued to fall in July, new data revealed today, despite an increase in demand from new buyers.
Respondents to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) UK Residential Survey also do not expect this demand to continue, as wider government support measures begin to be phased out later in the year.
Buyers and sellers
Almost half of survey respondents said they saw an increase in new buyers returning to the London housing market in July, up from minus 20 per cent in May and 43 per cent in June — marking the second consecutive report in which demand has rebounded.
The capital has now seen an uptick in the number of sales being agreed for the second month in a row, as 34 per cent of respondents said they had seen a rise in people agreeing purchases.
RICS said this is indicative of a strong pick-up in transaction levels, after the hefty declines reported a few months ago. The positive turn was also mirrored across the rest of the UK.
In the short term, almost a fifth of respondents said they expect completed sales in London to continue to rise in the next three months.