Some respite for the housing market

The housing market enjoyed a little respite in June. The decline in buyer enquiries paused, new sales instructions rose and mortgage approvals recovered from their recent slide. But with house prices very high, and interest rates having risen, neither activity nor pricesare likely to gain any upward momentum. We expect transactions and mortgage approvals to hold broadly steady over the rest of the year. And we think house price growth will slow a little further from its current rate.