There were sharp unexpected seasonal drops in the number of visitors and net reservations on new home sites in October-November, says the latest Housing Market Report (HMR).

The Home Builders Federation survey says November saw matching declines in net reservations by first-time buyers, existing owners and investment buyers.

But a small majority of builders remain confident that 2010 will produce more sales than 2009, and there is a clear upward trend in the number of starts recorded in monthly figures from the National House-Building Council (NHBC).

Although house-building for the social sector (mostly housing associations) has held up much better this year than schemes for sale in the private sector, the HMR says housing has been singled out by Chancellor Alistair Darling as an obvious area for cuts when the government begins to make swingeing cuts in public spending.

Builders’ main source of hope is figures from the NHBC, which show the number of registrations to build new homes in three months from September to November (27,100) was 45 per cent ahead of the figure for the same period last year (18,700).

The website SmartNewHomes.com also indicates that new house prices might not have fallen as far as the rest of the market.

It says the average price of a new home rose by 1.5 per cent in November to just over £218,000, the third rise in the last four months.

Annual price growth showed continued improvement, with the rate of decline falling from 7.5 per cent recorded in October to just 3.7 per cent in the latest survey.