The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has announced that despite the lack of properties going up for sale being a concern, house prices are expected to rise over the next few months in Wales due to the imbalance between the supply and demand of properties.
Enquiries by new buyers rose an impressive 33% which suggested that the market was back on its way up, however due to the fact that new requests to sell fell for the sixth month in a row by 25%, the signs are not all that encouraging as a whole.
These figures were taken from a residential market survey conducted last month, and it shows that enquiries by new buyers have risen at the fastest rate since July 2015, with RICS spokesperson Tony Filice also suggesting that sales will start to increase from early next year.
“There are signs that the numbers may begin to edge upwards in the early part of 2017, as buyer enquiries rose in November” commented Filice. “Indeed, in terms of availability, our experience is that many vendors are waiting until the New Year”.
59% of the respondents from the survey are expecting this rise in sales, despite the fact that newly agreed sales have failed to rise at all in four of the last five months, and 7% more surveyors claimed that prices fell in the past three months compared to those who stated that the prices rose.
The changes to stamp duty could also still be affecting the buy-to-let market in Wales according to Roland James of Kent Jones & Co in Wrexham, in what appears to be a market full of instability with nobody sure of the direction it is going to go.
However, if what we are being told is true the people of Wales should be preparing themselves for in an increase in house prices come the new year.