LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s housing market lost steam last month as demand faded from buyers who had been rushing to purchase homes before tax incentives ended, while concerns mounted about the outlook for the UK and global economy, a survey showed.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors’ measure of new buyer enquiries fell to its lowest since September 2023 at a net balance of -32 in March, down for -16 in February.
A gauge of agreed home sales dropped further into negative territory.
Last week, Britain’s government lowered the price threshold at which homebuyers become liable to pay the property purchase tax known as stamp duty.
“The expiry of the stamp duty break was always going to lead to a pause in activity in the sales market. However, the latest results … suggest that the shift in sentiment has been aggravated by the slew of negative macro newsflow over the past few weeks,” RICS chief economist Simon Rubinsohn said.
The impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and potential reciprocal levies from other countries could “stimulate further uncertainty” next month, RICS said.
Wednesday’s survey chimed with other measures of Britain’s housing sector that have pointed to a slowdown, and Bank of England data which showed mortgage approvals cooled in February.
RICS’ house price balance, measuring the difference between the percentage of surveyors seeing rises and falls in house prices over the past three months, fell to +2 in March, its weakest since August 2024, down from +11 in February. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a smaller fall to +8.
Survey respondents broadly expected house prices to fall in the next three months, although they see prices largely in positive territory in the year ahead.
(Reporting by Suban Abdulla; editing by David Milliken)
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