UK housing market comes off boil, still hot - RICS

Britain's red-hot housing market cooled a little last month in July as the partial removal of a temporary cut to property purchase taxes caused a slight drop in demand from new buyers, a survey showed on Thursday.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said its monthly gauge of house prices eased in July to +79 from +82 in June, which had been highest level since the late 1980s. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a reading of +76.