Mortgage rates deal blow to housing market recovery

The housing market’s nascent recovery in the early months of this year has already “slipped into reverse”, with mortgage rates having edged higher again in recent weeks.

Estate agents are taking fewer inquiries from would-be buyers, agreeing fewer sales and seeing more price reductions than they were only a month or so ago, according to the most recent industry survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Tarrant Parsons, senior economist at the RICS, said the drop-off in confidence among prospective home movers largely reflects “the upward moves seen in mortgage rates over the past couple of months”.

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Stubborn inflation, particularly in the all-important services sector, and strong wage growth has led to