The RICS said this morning that the housing crisis is now a national emergency. It called on the Government to address it as a matter of urgency.

In an unusually strong statement, the RICS said that last month house prices rose yet again, with a third consecutive monthly decline in supply.

According to the RICS, new instructions in April fell at their fastest rate since May 2009 when Britain was locked into the housing crash.

The RICS said that surveyors in every part of the UK saw prices rise last month, while supply fell almost everywhere.

The RICS says that while these trends may have in part been a result of uncertainty ahead of the election, they are also “reflective of deeper underlying problems”.

Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist, said: “It is conceivable that the decisive outcome to the election could encourage a pick-up in instructions to agents and ease some of the recent upward pressure on house prices, but it is doubtful that this will be substantive enough to provide anything more than temporary relief.

“Alongside an increased flow of second-hand stock, it is absolutely critical that the new government focuses on measures to boost the flow of new-build.”

Jeremy Blackburn, head of policy at the RICS, said: “The affordability and availability of homes in the UK is now a national emergency and addressing this crisis must be the priority for the new government.

“The last time we were building 300,000 homes was in 1963 under Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government, which utilised both public and private building.

“We need a coherent and coordinated house-building strategy across all tenures.

“This should include measures that will kick-start a supply-side revolution, such as mapping brownfield, addressing planning restrictions and creating a housing observatory to assess the underlying economic and social drivers of housing and provide the impetus for solutions.

“Introducing demand-side measures, such as extending ‘Right to Buy’, will not see the Conservatives deliver on their promise of 1m homes by 2020.”