Halifax reports 0.9% drop in UK house prices for November

Tuesday, 06 December 2011 09:07

Halifax has reported a 0.9 per cent drop in average UK house prices in November.

The Halifax house price index is one of the key monthly reports on the state of the property market in the UK and Halifax said that gains made in previous months have now been reversed.

It means the price of the average house in the UK is now £161,731, a drop of one per cent on a year ago.

However, the lender did say that because of the climate of low interest rates in the UK, it expected house prices to remain resilient in the months to come. Prices fell by 0.6 per cent in the three months to the end of November, compared with the previous quarter.

Martin Ellis, housing economist, said: "Overall, house prices have remained remarkably stable in 2011 despite the difficult and deteriorating economic climate and the substantial pressure on households' finances. The UK average price now is only marginally lower than at the end of 2010.”

Another respected monthly survey on UK house prices by Nationwide says that house prices have increased by 1.6 per cent.

However, the Halifax said that the industry-wide number of mortgages approved to finance house purchase - a leading indicator of completed house sales – increased by 3% in October and was 13% higher than in October 2010.

Some analysts and estate agents believe that the usual measures of the relative health of the UK property market such as the Halifax and Nationwide indices are skewed due to the complicated and confused state of the market.

Liya Fateh, MeetMyAgent.co.uk said: “At the moment, it's almost impossible to predict which way house prices are going to trend from month to month. If you want a true measure of market conditions, walk into any estate agent's office and they will tell you the same thing - there is a large amount of stock that is taking a long time to shift.”

Howard Archer from IHS Global Insight said: “The Halifax data tie in with our belief that house prices are headed down over the coming months and are likely to fall by 5% from current levels by mid-2012.”

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