Drewery and Wheeldon Estate Agents

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has forecast that house prices will keep rising over the next three months. As with all such reports the devil tends to be in the detail.

The latest housing market survey from RICS shows a net balance of surveyors increasing form 21% to 34% in October who consider house prices will rise.

It does however leave 66% of surveyors who consider that either prices are still falling or that the market has levelled out.

London has seen the most dramatic jump in prices where the net balance of surveyors is reporting price rises has reached 95%. This information does somewhat mirror the north south divide and the recent price increases reported by the Halifax and Nationwide Building Societies are distorted due to the activity in the London market place.

In Lincolnshire, North Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire although the numbers of sales are increasing the Land Registry still report that prices have dropped some 8% in 2009.