The UK housing market has started the new year off in a similar fashion to the closing stages of 2017, according to the January 2018 RICS UK Residential Market Survey.

In January, new buyer enquiries, instructions and sales all continued to drift lower, while the three month expectations for agreed sales points to a flat picture in the coming months. However, there is more optimism regarding the twelve month sales projections which are now modestly positive in virtually all parts of the country.

For a tenth month in succession, new buyer enquiries across the UK declined with 11% more respondents reporting a fall rather than rise. Similarly, newly agreed sales also slipped, extending the run of negative readings back to last February. Going forward, a relatively stable sales trend is expected to emerge in the near term, while respondents envisage sales picking-up over the next twelve months as a whole.

There is, however, no sign of an upturn in the flow of properties coming to the market in the UK, and with 17% more respondents seeing a further decline in new instructions and the January figure was the weakest since May 2017.