The UK's housing market has slowed down again - but NI energy efficient homes are proving popular.

New statistics from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors covering May have underlined the fall with 93% of the UK's chartered surveyors reporting a fall in house prices.

The average number of transactions completed by surveyors over the past three months also dropped and was just 17.4, the lowest figure since 1978.

However, in Co Antrim, new energy-efficient houses in Lisburn have bucked the trend by attracting some 2,000 people to an open day and prompted the first queue outside an estate agent in over a year.

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Claiming to save up to 60% on home heating costs, these homes in Lisburn, built by the Carvill Group, are averaging five sales a day.

The development is timely too as Northern Ireland homebuyers will now have to pay for a special energy assessor to indicate whether their home is 'energy efficient' under new plans that come into effect from the end of June.

The Energy Performance Certificates - which are already in place in England and Wales - will impact on all new construction projects from October and all rentals by the end of the year.

See: Home Energy Certificates Planned For Northern Ireland

(BMcC)