House price watchers say market is still falling

House price watchers say market is still falling

13:12 PM, 17th November 2010, About 14 years ago

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House prices fell by a marginal 0.7% across most of the country in October, according to the latest data from the Nationwide.

The average UK house price is now £167,354 – still up 4.5% in the year.

Despite the small decrease, house prices in London, the South East, and Northern Ireland bucked the trend with small increases.

London remains the most expensive place to buy a home, while the North is the cheapest.

Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said: “The third quarter of 2010 saw house prices fall in nine out of 13 UK regions. For the UK as a whole, prices fell by 1.0% in the quarter, leading to a fall in the annual growth rate from 9.5% to 4.5%.

“Scotland was the worst performing region in the quarter, with a 3.4% quarter-on-quarter fall, pushing the annual rate of change negative, down 0.6% year-on-year.

London still outperforms the rest of the country

“London stayed the top performing region on an annual basis. Annual house price growth in the capital was 9.2% in the third quarter, a slight softening from 13.2% in the previous quarter.

“Continuing the trend seen so far this year, the northern and midland regions generally saw weaker price growth than the southern regions. Yorkshire and Humberside saw the weakest performance in England, with a quarterly fall of 2.7%.

“The North remained the weakest region on an annual basis, with prices up 1.0% year-on-year.

“The quarterly price change in Wales was similar to the rest of the UK, with a 1.2% fall in the quarter. This resulted in a slowing in annual house price growth from 4.7% to 2.9%.”

Meanwhile, the Land Registry issued the final figures for September’s house price movements.

The report showed a 0.2% decrease from August and posted an average house price for England and Wales at £166,769.

The Land Registry figures show house sales for July 2010 were 64,411, up just 1% on the 63,612 recorded in July 2009.


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