Northern Ireland’s housing market has seen an uplift in sentiment post the UK General Election, according to results of the monthly RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) and Ulster Bank Northern Ireland Residential Market Survey.

Expectations for prices and sales activity for the three months ahead have risen following a slowdown at the end of 2019.

In December, fewer new buyers, sales, and instructions to sell were reported by Northern Ireland surveyors, continuing a slowdown that was also evident in November.

However, a net balance of +33 percent of local respondents to the latest survey expects prices to rise in the January to March period and a net balance of +26 percent expects the number of sales to increase in the same timeframe.

Indeed, three-month sales expectations are now at the strongest since September 2018 and three-month price expectations are at their highest level since June 2019.

Northern Ireland surveyors also remain relatively upbeat looking 12-months ahead. A net balance of +61 percent expects prices to be higher in a year’s time and a net balance of +35 percent expects the number of sales to be higher.

The availability of housing stock remains the main challenge in the market however, which could limit sales activity whilst also pushing up prices as supply exceeds demand. The number of new properties coming onto the market was reported to have fallen for the third month in a row in December. The net balance for new instruction to sell was -19 percent.

Samuel Dickey, RICS Residential Property Spokesman in Northern Ireland, said: “The survey suggests that sentiment in the housing market locally and across the UK is benefiting from the greater clarity provided by the decisive election outcome. Locally, the recent restoration of the Executive and Assembly should also provide some more confidence in the Northern Ireland economy. However, there is a huge amount of work to be done over the course of this year in determining the nature of the eventual Brexit deal, so uncertainty at a political level definitely hasn’t gone away. For now, surveyors remain upbeat about the outlook, albeit that the lack of available stock continues to act as a drag on activity and to push up prices as demand exceeds supply.”

Terry Robb, Head of Personal Banking at Ulster Bank, said: “The very high levels of demand that we experienced for Help to Buy ISAs in the lead up to the deadline in November shows the significant demand there is in Northern Ireland for people to own their own home. As we move into 2020, we continue to see that demand evident from a wide range of potential buyers and remortgagers and a very healthy number of mortgage enquiries since the turn of the year.”

The main findings of the survey were

The net balance of respondents reporting a rise in house prices over the last 3 months was +50%, the highest since July 2019
New buyer enquiries fell in December (a net balance of -9%)
The net balance for newly agreed sales was -27%, suggesting that fewer sales were agreed in December than in November
New instructions to sell also fell back according to a net balance of -19% of respondents, meaning that there has been no increase reported in nine of the last 11 months
The net balance for price expectations in the next three months is +33% and the net balance for sales expectations is +26%.