Surveyors have warned that “dire shortage” of housing in the UK is continuing to push up prices.
The warning from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) comes at a time when the government is expected to present a White Paper on housing supply this month.
Rics said that house hunters were returning to the market after the EU referendum in June but buyers are facing a lack of property availability in the market. It said prices across most areas of the country are on the rise.
In October, surveyors seeing price rises outnumbered those seeing falls by a majority of 23%. That compares with 18% in September.
The exception: Central London
Rics said that Central London was the exception where prices have now fallen for the eighth month in a row.
According to Rics chief economist, Simon Rubinsohn, “The dire shortage of available housing across the UK is continuing to push prices upwards, regardless of the uncertainty linked to the ongoing discussions surrounding Brexit”.
Expectations from the White Paper
The government has already launched a new fund to help build 225,000 extra houses, and further measures are expected to be announced in a White Paper which is expected to be published as soon as the Autumn Statement on 23 November. It is expected that the paper will encourage small developers and speed up housebuilding on land where planning permission has been granted.
“The big developers must release their stranglehold on supply”, Communities Secretary, Sajid Javid, told the Conservative Party conference last month.
“It’s time to stop sitting on land banks, delaying build-out: the homebuyers must come first.”
