Housing: Homes shortage restricts sales

House hunters are still experiencing a severe shortage of available homes on the market, a report claimed yesterday.

Barclays said that for every 10 properties on the market, there were 21 people looking to buy a home and the fact that demand was still outstripping supply was becoming an established feature of the housing market,

According to its Mortgage Index, which measures the activity of all home loan lenders, autumn is becoming almost as popular as the traditional spring surge for home buying.

It also revealed that total mortgage lending has jumped by 10 per cent since last October. The report pointed out that average year-on-year growth in mortgage lending for 1997 so far is 11 per cent, indicating stability in the market.