NI housing market growth off to a slow start in 2019

Northern Ireland's residential housing market may be off to a slow start of 2019, with price expectations dropping by 8% over one month according to the latest report by RICS.

Last month we reported booming predictions for the NI housing market, as the Royal Institute of Chartered Accountants's summary report on activity in November 2018 indicated high confidence in continued price rises across Northern Ireland. While prices were expected to drop throughout the UK, RICS documented that the sentiment among surveyors was such that that 39% more of them expected prices to rise in NI compared to those that expected prices to fall.

The latest RICS and Ulster Bank report on the housing market has just been released, and it looks like that confidence level is dropping. The latest figures follow up on activity throughout December 2018 and show that only 32% more respondents in Northern Ireland expect prices to rise in the coming months.

RICS reports that surveyor expectations of housing prices over the next three months have dropped by 8%, despite the fact that prices of agreed sales in December rose by 9%. The drop in expectations may be due to a lack of demand as the number of new enquiries dropped in December, and are now more in line with the rest of the UK.

Source: RICS Press Release