An indicator of the expected monthly change in house prices in the UK, published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS). The RICS house price balance is based on opinions about housing price trends of a sample size of surveyors based in the UK, covered by the RICS monthly Housing Market Survey.
The house price balance figure is calculated as the proportion of surveyors reporting a rise in housing prices minus the proportion reporting a fall in prices. A positive net balance implies that more surveyors are seeing housing price increases than decreases, which would imply a robust housing market. A negative net balance implies that more surveyors are witnessing housing price decreases than increases, implying a fragile housing market.
|||Consider the following example to calculate the house price balance figure. Assume that in a survey of 300 surveyors, 150 reported that prices went up, 50 reported no change and 100 reported that prices went down. Proportionally therefore, 50% reported higher prices and 33% reported lower prices, for a net house price balance of +17.