The housing market in London and the south east has been pretty flat for a year, but now it looks as if the malaise is spreading to the rest of the country.

Brexit uncertainty hangs over the wider economy and will hit the housing market in 2019, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at RICs, says: "Our key buyer enquiries series, which captures a number of people coming into estate agencies, has dropped pretty much across the country... it's that Brexit uncertainty that is holding people back."