September saw the most significant month-on-month drop for six months after half a year of drops, according to the latest Agency Express Property Activity Index.

However, compared to September 2009 monthly sales were still encouragingly up by 4.7% and were 20.0% better than the levels of sales seen in September 2007.

While traditionally a boom month for house sales, the story was similar for properties being put up for sale in September with a drop across the UK of 10.4% and all regions witnessing a decline.

Stephen Watson, managing director, Agency Express, said: “It appears that the attempted housing market recovery, which at its best was muted, has been exposed as being very fragile. Although the level of monthly house sales is at its lowest since January we are still seeing activity that is comfortably higher than twelve months ago and there have been pockets of growth around the country.”

Watson said the balancing out of property supply and demand has changed the picture, alongside the lending shortage but he added that he expects a gradual pick-up of activity in October and November.

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Across the UK, four regions saw higher numbers of property sales, including Yorkshire with sales up 10.0%, Scotland with 7.6%, the West Midlands with 5.2% and London sales up 3.2%.

Also, six cities experienced an uplift in sales in September, including Glasgow with over 12%, Birmingham at 10.3% and Newcastle, Norwich, Manchester and Oxford.

The South East had the smallest reduction in the number of properties being put on the market with a fall of just -2.4% followed by Yorkshire at -3.5% and the North West at -6.5%.

In more positive news, five cities saw an upturn in the number of houses being put up for sale in September including Coventry with a considerable increase of 20.2% followed by Southampton (+8.1%), Leicester (+5.4%), Bristol (+2.5%) and Manchester (+1.7%).