(Bloomberg) -- U.K. real estate agents see the housing market cooling significantly next year as pent-up lockdown demand and a tax break come to an end.
Property prices rose in October and will likely continue to do so through the end of the year, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said Thursday. The number of new home listings is on its longest growth streak since 2013 and there was an increase in new buyers for a fifth month.
But the outlook is “subdued,” RICS said. Rising unemployment, new virus restrictions and the planned end of a temporary tax break on buying a house mean realtors expect the boom to be short-lived.
“There is understandably more caution about activity looking beyond the first quarter of 2021,” said Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at RICS. “Aside from the withdrawal of government incentives, the market may also find the more challenging employment picture a significant obstacle.”
Unemployment in the U.K. has already climbed to the highest in four years. Figures for third quarter gross domestic product will be published later Thursday, but analysts expect the economy to return to contraction in the last three months of the year after the nation imposed a second lockdown this month.
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