THE school holidays have seen the traditional slowdown in house sales, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. But new instructions received to sell property in the South East have begun to pick up, leading to surveyors predicting an increase in activity over coming months.

Stagnation in the number of houses coming on to the market over the summer, more buyer inquiries and increased competition for properties, coupled with a rise in market confidence, point towards sellers slowly regaining the upper hand.

RICS South East chairman, David Tuffin, said: "The balance of power remains with purchasers but the gap is narrowing. Earlier in the year many people were accepting up to 10 per cent below asking price for their properties. Our research seems to indicates this situation is changing as buyers begin to come back into the market."

The average number of properties on the market per surveyor in the South East was 79 in July, well up on 12 months ago when the average was 55. The pace of increase in buyer inquiries is the strongest since last September.