LONDON (ShareCast) - Estate agent group M Winkworth forecast a quiet start to the property market next year, but said it expected prices and sales to pick up in the second half.
Winkworth predicted a 5% fall in central London house prices in the first half of next year and flat prices in the year as a whole. Suburban London prices were likely also to be flat in the first half before picking up modestly towards the end of the year.

Confidence in the property market in the South East was restored in 2014 as the numbers moving out of the capital rose. "We anticipate that this will continue in 2015, with prices outperforming London and increasing by 3% overall," Winkworth said.

It forecast that the middle market would show the strongest activity in 2015, as delayed interest rate rises prolong the availability of cheap mortgages. The number of transactions overall is expected to be flat on 2014, but that by the end of 2015 these will again be on a steady upward trend, it said.

Winkworth said it believed it would be able to achieve a stable performance for 2015 despite potentially more difficult conditions in the first half.

"If this prognosis proves correct, we will maintain our progressive dividend policy," it said in a trading statement.

Winkworth, which franchises out estate agencies, predicted full year revenues for 2014 would match market expectations.

It said there had been "considerable variation" in the London and south-east England housing markets between the first and second halves of this year.

The spike in London at the end of the first quarter had progressively subsided, particularly in the prime London market, it said.

Winkworth said next year's UK general election, a clampdown on irresponsible mortgage lending and the strong pound had affected demand.

The group said it will have opened five branches in the UK in 2014, including London Colney, Enfield, Ramsbury, Salisbury and Reading, as well as an office in Marbella in southern Spain.

"We expect to open more new offices in these regions in 2015," Winkworth said.

Shares fell 6p or 4.6% to 125p at 10:43 in London.

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