The average number of properties on estate agents' books has hit a record low and is "unlikely to improve", according to a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). While a typical estate agent has 42 homes on their books per branch, in London – where the nation's chronic housing shortage is most concentrated – the figure is just 33. Rics's monthly residential market survey, which gathers the views of more than 300 chartered surveyors across the country, also found that there was a prevailing trend in the lack of new buyer enquiries, new instructions and newly agreed sales.
New buyer enquiries fell for the eleventh consecutive month, with 16pc more survey respondents seeing a fall rather than rise in new customers, while the number of agreed sales was also down, continuing a six-month trend. Buyer demand has fallen most dramatically in London and the south east, Rics said, while it has risen in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Yorkshire and the Humber. Figures in most other regions remained broadly flat.