U.K. House Prices Fall

Tighter credit conditions and a weak economy weighed on the U.K. housing market in June as house prices fell and activity slowed, a survey by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported. Separately, a survey from the British Retail Consortium U.K. retail sales for the first half of 2012 were subdued as the wettest June on record curbed spending, despite shoppers having an extra day off to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's Jubilee. House prices retreated further in June amid a weak economy and the euro-zone debt crisis. A balance of minus 22 surveyors reported house prices fell in June, down from minus 17 in May and the weakest reading since October 2011. Economists had forecast the balance to remain unchanged at minus 16 in June, unchanged from the unrevised RICS figure for May. The balance is calculated by taking the percentage of surveyors who report prices fell from the percentage who report an increase. "The housing market didn't manage to turn a corner last month and activity remained in the doldrums," said Simon Rubinsohn, the RICS's chief economist. "Fewer vendors looked to test the market and levels of buyer interest seem to have fallen back since the expiry of the stamp-duty deadline earlier in the year." A temporary suspension in the stamp duty and land tax for first-time home buyers boosted U.K. house prices earlier this year. Now that has ended, market activity has slowed and surveyors expect lower prices and only a mild pickup in the number of sales in the next three months. The BRC survey, meanwhile, reported a 1.4% year-to-year increase in like-for-like sales in June and a 3.5% rise in sales volumes, which include new stores. Read more. (Subscription required.)