Housing market continues to outperform rest of UK

While average UK house prices are reported to have fallen for the third successive month in November, with London and South East England reporting the biggest falls, a net balance of 39% percent of respondents here saying that prices rose.

The province is also the only region where surveyors expect prices to rise in the three months ahead.

Northern Ireland surveyors are also significantly more optimistic when it comes to expectations for sales activity while surveyors in all but one other region expect sales activity to fall in the three months ahead.

In terms of supply, the survey pointed to a slight fall in properties coming onto the market here.

“Overall 2018 is shaping up to have been a relatively positive year for the housing market in Northern Ireland in a number of respects,” said RICS residential property spokesman, Samuel Dickey.

“House prices look to have risen at healthy rate and activity in various segments of the market has been relatively good, albeit that there are regional variations.

“One thing though that does continue to be a feature is the lack of supply. We need to see more new homes being built, and more resale properties would need to become available to meet demand.

“Uncertainty in the wider environment doesn’t seem to be having an significant impact on the housing market to date unlike in the rest of the UK. Whether that continues into 2019 remains to be seen.”

Terry Robb, head of personal banking at Ulster Bank, said: “Demand throughout 2018 to date has been good and we have seen a good pipeline of activity during the year.

“The level of interest that we are seeing from customers, as well as feedback from surveyors, suggests that the early part of 2019 at least will continue to see good demand.”