House price growth still slowing

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by Kay Murchie

According to the latest Land Registry figures, house in England and Wales are still slowing down.

The Land Registry said prices rose by 0.9% last month with the average property price at £186,045. However, the annual rate of increase continued to slow, to 6.4% in January compared with 6.7% in December, the fifth consecutive fall.

The figures concur with other results indicating that the property market is continuing to slow.

However, property prices in the capital are still increasing at an annual rate of 13.1%, almost double the rate for England and Wales, said the Land Registry figures but that doesn‘t mean London has been unaffected from the slowdown.

A spokesperson for the Land Registry said the downward trend in annual growth rates nationally is also visible in the data for London, although London growth rates continue to be stronger than those of England and Wales.

Furthermore, the number of houses sold in November 2007 fell by 22% compared with November 2006. Land Registry figures showed that 90,581 properties were sold last November, down from 115,873 compared with the previous year. This is the lowest level of house sales since February 2007 - a month when sales are typically lower.

The news follows an announcement from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA) that mortgage lending last month by the UK’s biggest banks continued to be subdued. BBA figures show that its members approved 44,000 new mortgages for house purchase last month.

Although that it was a slight improvement from December’s figures, it was still 31% lower compared with 12 months ago.