The World Cup helped stall the UK housing market in June according to the latest Agency Express Property Activity Index.

The latest results show that the number of UK monthly house sales fell in June by 5.3%. According to Agency Express, it appears that the wall-to-wall coverage of the World Cup, Wimbledon and the one day cricket has caused homebuyers to temporarily place their home buying plans on hold. June 2010 was 7.0% down on June 2009’s level.

The hardest hit regions were the West Midlands where there was a dramatic slump of 26.4% in the number of houses that were sold in June, followed by the South West down 11.4%, Wales down 10.6%, the North East down 8.8% and London down 7.7%. Only two regions in the UK were able to report a rise in June house sales – they were the North West where sales were up 10.5% and the East Midlands where sales rose 6.7%.

The cities that witnessed the most dramatic falls in house sales in June were Birmingham down 34.7%, Nottingham down 32%, Exeter down 31.7%, Southampton down 27.8% and Glasgow down 27.4%. Only a few cities witnessed an increase in monthly house sales with Leicester leading the way with a 44.0% rise followed by Manchester up 37.0% and Milton Keynes up 30.1%.

Stephen Watson, managing director, Agency Express, said: “The heightened interest in the World Cup and the number of games shown live seems to have drawn people’s attention away from closing the deal on their prospective properties. Now that England have crashed out of the tournament after a number of lack lustre displays we can expect homebuyers to return to the housing market with real conviction to get their new property sorted. With interest rates still at record low levels and house prices having stabilised