By Andy Bruce

LONDON (Reuters) – Asking prices for houses in Britain resumed their upward trend this month as buyer demand far outstripped the supply of houses coming to the market, a survey showed on Monday.

Rightmove (OTC) reported that September’s asking prices reached a new record of 338.462 pounds ($466,671) in its survey. This is a reversed 0.3% decline in the August early-August.

The survey showed that there are signs the housing market is still gaining momentum despite the withdrawal of tax incentives for property purchase.

Rishi Sunak (Finance minister) reduced stamp duty in July 2020. This is a tax on property purchases. However, stamp duty began to rise to pre-pandemic levels in July and this month the tax cut is fully expired.

Tax cuts were made to help reverse a decline in home sales since the outbreak of the pandemic. They also fueled a boom in real estate prices and new construction. Larger homes that are more suitable for working at home were in demand by many households. This has also led to significant price increases elsewhere.

Rightmove’s director for property data Tim Bannister stated that the “high ratio of buyers demand to properties available for sale” means the property market continues to be stock-starved, despite a decrease in summer activity.

The number of potential buyers per property was more than twice as high pre-pandemic levels, according to the Rightmove director of property data. This concurs with a report similar from Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

($1 = 0.7253 pounds) The August survey included property that was first listed on Rightmove from Aug. 8 to Sept. 11.

($1 = 0.7253 pounds)