The number of people seeking to buy a home surged to a two-year high last month as bargain-seekers searched for repossessed and forced-sale properties at bargain-basement prices, new figures suggest.

However, the increased level of interest from potential buyers was not enough to perk up the dire situation in the housing market, with the number of sales slumping to a new 30-year low between September and November.

Estate agency branches sold an average of 10.6 houses each in England and Wales in the three months to November 30 - less than one house a week. That figure was down from 10.9 houses in the three months to October 31, a survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed. That is the lowest figure recorded since RICS began its survey in 1978.

As sales of houses fell, the prices that they achieved also continued to decline during the month, although the proportion of agents reporting price falls eased slightly. About 76.5per cent more surveyors reported that prices fell rather than rose in November, compared with 81 per cent in October.

In a symptom of the worsening outlook for house prices, which have already fallen by 18 per cent since the market peaked in summer last year, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said yesterday that it would not produce its annual forecast for house prices. The CML, which represents 98 per cent of residential mortgage lenders, said that prices would fall again next year but that the low level of transactions made it difficult to forecast how far.

Some experts said the decision could have been taken in an attempt not to talk down the market. Some economists have forecast that house prices could fall a further 15 per cent next year. One glimmer of hope in the grim RICS figures was the rise in the number of inquiries from new buyers, with more surveyors reporting that inquiries rose, rather than fell, for the first time since October 2006.

Inquiries rose sharply in the South West and the West Midlands but buyers in London and the East Midlands were still scarce, surveyors said.

There are hopes that Government plans to allow borrowers who fall into difficulties a two-year holiday on paying interest on a portion of their mortgage could reduce the number of distressed sellers, slowing the pace of house price falls. But Simon Rubinsohn, an RICS economist, said that could serve to depress the number of transactions further. House prices have been dragged down by the drought in the mortgage market, with lenders demanding large deposits.

There was a further blow to potential buyers as Lloyds TSB, which has received billions in taxpayers’ money, raised the rates on its tracker-rate mortgage deals by up to 0.4 percentage points, despite last week’s 1 percentage point cut in interest rates.

HSBC pledged to increase mortgage lending next year to £15 billion, 20 per cent above this year’s level.

But the misery for homesellers was compounded as the Government announced that its controversial Home Information Packs (HIPs) will be mandatory as soon as homeowners put their house on the market from April next year.

At present, sellers can market their home for 28 days without a HIP, which provides buyers with property information and costs about £300 to produce, if they have ordered one.

Northern Rock is the latest government-supported lender to cut its variable mortgage rate by less than one percentage point. Yesterday it announced a half-point cut in its standard variable rate to 5.34 per cent.

As reported in Times Online - Gráinne Gilmore and Rebecca O’Connor