Nationwide: UK house prices fall 1.0%

Nationwide released it’s monthly house price survey, and it showed the first month-to-month fall in UK house prices since last Spring. However, house prices are still up 9.2% year-on-year according to their survey.

Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said: 

The price of a typical UK property fell by a seasonally adjusted 1.0% month-on-month (m/m) in February, ending a strong run of nine consecutive monthly increases. The relatively smoother three month on three month rate of inflation remained positive at +1.6%, though this is down from +2.0% in January and a peak of +3.7% in September 2009. The annual rate of price inflation still managed to increase from 8.6% to 9.2% year-on-year, as this month’s fall was smaller than the 1.5% m/m decline recorded in February 2009. The average price of a typical property sold in the UK during February was £161,320.

Note, that unlike the S&P/Case-Shiller data that I quote for the U.S., this data is already seasonally adjusted. Therefore, going forward, a multi-month price decline would signal a reversal of trend. The evidence does point to weakness as new buyer enquiries and mortgage approvals have dipped of late.

The Halifax is due out with their own house price survey. And while the trend there has mirrored the Nationwide data, the data are slightly less robust.  My view is that the market is shifting away from a position of undersupply which had buoyed markets. This will dampen further price increases.

Source

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