Guardian News and Media/London

There are signs that the booming UK housing market could be cooling, with two sets of data showing a slowdown in demand from buyers in May.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) said the number of new inquiries from house-hunters had fallen to its slowest pace since February 2013, while the number of homes coming on to the market had contracted for the fifth month running.

Meanwhile figures from the UK’s largest surveyor, e.surv, showed the number of house purchase loans fell to their lowest level for 11 months. House prices rose to a record high in May, according to Nationwide Building Society’s latest snapshot of the market, and Rics said higher prices, together with a lack of homes for sale and the introduction of restrictions on mortgage lending, had deterred new buyers from entering the market.

In recent months London has been powering the housing market, with some parts of the capital recording double-digit price rises, but Rics said demand from new buyers was starting to subside.

Inquiries from new buyers fell in May for the first time since January last year and more surveyors reported a fall in numbers than a rise for the first time in almost two years.

At the same time, the number of sales agreed remained flat in the capital and the rest of the south-east.

Buyer inquiries were also down in the north of England and East Anglia, and Rics said there were some early signs that concerns over both supply and finance could be influencing the outlook elsewhere in the country.

In the south-east, the proportion of surveyors expecting more sales over the next three months had fallen to 29% from 66% six months ago, while in the south-west it had dropped to 48% from 93%.

Surveyors who had been predicting that London would see price increases of 9% a year over the next five years have revised that down to just under 5%, while on a national level the forecast has edged down to 5%.

“Given the relationship between new buyer inquiries and new instructions on the one hand, and house price inflation on the other, this signals a slowdown in the latter over the next six to 12 months,” it said.

The report, which comes days before the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) meets to discuss the UK housing market amid concerns of runaway price growth, suggested that mortgage lending rules that came into force in April have had a dampening effect on the market.

The changes, brought in under the mortgage market review, mean lenders have to undertake strict affordability checks before offering loans and Rics said anecdotal evidence suggested there had been a tightening in underwriting standards as a result.

Respondents to the survey suggested average loan-to-values among first-time buyers had dropped to 85.3% from 86% in April.

Rics’ chief economist, Simon Rubinsohn, said: “What we are really seeing is some of the very strong upward momentum starting to come off the housing market, as a lack of supply, higher prices, more prudent lending measures and some of the talk from the Bank of England creating a level of caution among sellers and buyers. ”