The survey was conducted throughout March and focused on a number of areas such as house price and interest rate expectations, general confidence, buying intentions, and views on property as an investment.
Significantly, 84% of respondents stated they believed right now to be a good time to buy a property in the UK. The last time the survey recorded such a high percentage was back in November 2010.
Just 28% of those interviewed expect UK property values to fall over the coming year with an even split between those who expect prices to either increase or remain static.
On the subject of interest rates, 85% expect the base rate to rise at some point over the next 12 months. This is a substantially lower figure than last month’s 96% and actually represents the lowest figure in 4 months.
65% said that they were still benefitting from the current low level of interest rates with 58% saying this had increased their desire to buy a property.
Looking further afield, 56% are of the opinion that an overseas property purchase represents good value in the current market with the United States still the most popular region in which to buy.
Greece, Turkey, Spain and Portugal also ranked highly, and China was also mentioned for the first time in the history of the survey.
Three in every four people surveyed believe property offers the best investment potential of any major investment. Gold was in second place with 13% of the vote and shares received just 7%. Currency and savings received 4% and 2% respectively.
Managing Director of the Worldwide Property Group, Kevin Wilkes said:
“It is interesting to see a drop in the number of respondents who are anticipating an increase in interest rates. Given the positive CPI inflation report earlier this month, I expect next month we’ll see a further decline in those people expecting a rate rise.”
