Housing market underpinned by strong fundamentals

Published: April 15, 2008

People with first-time buyer mortgages and all other mortgage borrowers should not be too concerned about the state of the UK property market.

That is according to the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), which was responding to a new survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).

Rics published a survey showing that market sentiment was at its lowest for 30 years in March.

However, the NAEA said that it is not all doom and gloom and highlighted a number of positives that people with first-time buyer mortgages can take from the survey and other recent data.

"The positive news is that the Rics survey showed that just under a quarter of its respondents appear to have reported a rise in house prices, which shows how regionalised the picture is," said NAEA chief executive Peter Bolton King.

"Key factors that underpin the housing market still exist - low unemployment, historically low interest rates and a pent-up demand for houses.

"We can see from the figures that it is not all doom and gloom out there," he continued.