New buyer enquiries fell for the second month in in a row, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors UK Residential Market Survey.

The RICS found that demand was either flat or falling across virtually all parts of the UK over the last month.

At the same time, agreed sales also declined for a second consecutive month, but surveyors said they expected sales to remain steady in the near term, and grow over the next 12 months.

Supply still low

Supply is still a problem, with the flow of fresh property listings coming onto the market continuing to deteriorate, said RICS – it’s now been in negative territory for eight of the last nine months. On average estate agents had just 38 properties on their books in August, compared to 42 at the start of 2021.

The lack of available stock is a key factor sustaining strong rates of house price inflation.

Ben Hudson, of surveyors Hudson Moody in York, said: “After a slowdown following the end of the stamp duty deadline in June, the market is picking up as we are going into the autumn.”

Jeffrey Hazel of Geoffrey Collings & Co in King’s Lynn, added that he was seeing “steady demand to purchase but few vendors coming to market thus demand exceeds supply”.

“We are now in the position where there is less property on the market than I can recall in 50 years,” he said.