Shortage of homes for sale drives deals to 4-year high

RISING demand outstripping ­supply will spark a further surge in house prices and create a web of property hotspots across the land, ­surveyors ­predicted yesterday

Homes sold reached a four-year high last month, yet there's a dearth of property coming to the market.

Only 10 per cent of surveyors ­registered with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported a rise in instructions to sell. But almost half - 49 per cent - recorded an increase in buyer inquiries.

Surveyors sold 18.7 properties each in the three months to ­September, the strongest figures since November 2009, amid further evidence the property market resurgence is spreading nationwide.

Values also continue to grow, with 54 per cent of surveyors reporting rises rather than falls.

The report found that they had now been rising steadily since Easter and last month increased in every region except the North-east.

Peter Bolton King, RICS residential director, said: "It's encouraging that the market is starting to improve in all parts of the country with more buyers looking to make a move and more sales going through.

"Even so, it's a big concern that the supply of property is lagging so far behind demand.

"This imbalance is likely to result in further upward pressure on prices over the coming months, particularly in the nation's hotspots."

James Hall, director of the online estate agents Fishneedwater, said: "There's just not enough property going round and this is sending prices ever higher and creating ­levels of interest for individual properties not seen for a long time

The property market is back and then some. Bidding wars are becoming an everyday occurrence in some areas of the UK.

"We're seeing a huge amount of pent-up demand hit the market.

"In certain areas of London and the South-east, people are prepared to pay well over the asking price to secure the property they want."

Housebuilding rose at its fastest pace in almost a decade last month but critics say Britain is still not building enough homes to satisfy demand. According to a closely watched indicator of economic ­output in the construction industry, housing ­activity rose in September at a pace not seen since November 2003.

It was one of the brightest spots in the Purchasing Managers Index.

However the Government's latest house building figures showed that only 106,820 homes have been built over the past year compared with the 250,000 needed to address ­England's housing shortage.

Kay Boycott, director at homeless charity Shelter, said: "We are still building fewer than half of the 250,000 homes we need each year to meet demand.

"In an overheating market, house prices are rising at their fastest rate since 2006, yet today's figures show that we're building just over half of the number of homes we were then.

"Unless we see radical action from the Government to tackle our chronic shortage of homes, house prices and rents will quickly rise even further out of reach for millions of people across the country ­struggling to find a stable home of their own."

Brian Murphy, head of lending at Mortgage Advice Bureau, said: "Mortgage availability has greatly improved in 2013. There is already far more chance of getting a mortgage now than this time last year. express