House-price falls are gathering momentum and are spreading across the UK, according to a m

onthly poll of surveyors which on Monday delivered its gloomiest reading for nearly 12 years.

Fifty-six percent of surveyors contacted by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reported price falls in the three months to October. Only 3 percent saw prices rise in their area, compared with 58 percent as recently as May.

There was further evidence of slowing activity in the property market as the number of sales per surveyor dived to a nine-year low. Unsold stock on agents' books has increased 10 percent since the summer. Ian Perry, Rics' national housing spokesman, said it was now very clear that buyers were unsettled by higher interest rates.

The Bank of England raised rates five times to 4.75 percent over the last year to cool the property boom.

But he also blamed comments by Mervyn King, the Bank's governor, and misleading media headlines for "injecting additional uncertainty into the market by continued speculation over more serious price declines".

"Mervyn King presumably felt that he had to be more explicit in the summer when people were still buying. His warnings of a drop in property prices then have had the desired effect.

"But our concern now is that the pendulum is swinging too far", be said.

Last week, the Bank's monetary policy committee predicted for the first time that "house prices may fall modestly for a period" in its November inflation report. The Nationwide and Halifax mortgage lenders both showed a modest monthly decline in house prices in their latest loan approval data.

Although the majority of surveyors expect prices to fall further in the next three months, Mr. Perry stressed there were signs of stabilizing demand from buyers in London.

"London tends to be ahead of the rest of the market. And agents are telling us that more people are looking to buy. It is much better than it was", Mr. Perry said.

However, falling prices continued to spread from the South of England as surveyors reported the first clear decline in prices in Yorkshire and the Humber, the north and the northwest. Scotland remained the only region with rising prices.

We learn from the passage that

A．the present house price falls are at most a momentary phenomenon.

B．the property market is experiencing its most depressing time over the decade.

C．58 percent of surveyprs contacted started to encounter house price falls in May.

D．Rics' widely-followed headline indicator began to fall since Dec. 1992.