Thread: UK House prices stagnant but mortgage approvals up

According to two sets of recent figures, UK house prices are still stagnant

Land Registry data for August shows average prices falling by 0.3% to £162,347, making them 2.6% lower than in the same month last year.

Prices have fallen in three of the past four months. But, with small fluctuations each month, house prices in England and Wales have hardly changed since the end of 2010.

London is a different matter. The Land Registry said prices increased by 0.5% last month, and are now 2.1% higher than in August 2010.

London property prices now average £348,686.

The rest of the country has seen a steady decline in prices over the past year: 7.8% in the North East of England and 5.5% in Wales.


Nationwide's latest figures show an average increase of just 0.1% in September. Prices remain 0.3% lower than a year ago.

According to Nationwide, the average price of a property in Britain is now £166,256.

London, again, bucked the national trend, with prices up 0.5% on last year. They were, however, down 1.9% over the last quarter. In Northern Ireland prices fell 9.3% in the year and 4.1% in the last quarter.

“Sluggish demand for homes on the back of weak labour market conditions, combined with only a gradual rise in the supply of available properties, has helped to keep property prices fairly stable since the summer of 2010,” said Robert Gardner, Nationwide’s chief economist.

“Providing the UK recovery gradually gathers momentum in the months ahead, we continue to expect house prices to move sideways or to drift modestly lower over the remainder of 2011 and into 2012.


Against this backdrop, the cost of borrowing for homebuyers hit a record low in August. Bank of England figures show that the number of approvals for mortgages reached a peak of 52,410 loans, the highest in 20 months.

That's excellent news, I don't want to see any sort of recovery in house prices just yet and would actually welcome a small drop to be honest