House prices across the country are 6.5% up on a year ago, Nationwide reported this morning.
The lender, reporting on house prices this month, puts the average at £174,566 – up 0.6% on October, when there was a 1% rise on the month before.
Nationwide said that prices were nevertheless still 6% below the all-time high of late 2007. Its economist Robert Gardner said: "Activity in the housing market has picked up strongly in recent months." He said policy measures taken by the Government had helped, pointing out that in September, there were 66,735 approvals for house purchase mortgages, up 34% on the same month a year ago.
The Nationwide report today follows a much more muted one from the Land Registry which yesterday said that house prices across England and Wales edged down by just 0.2% in October to stand at £165,515.
Annual house price inflation was put at 3.1% by the Land Registry.
However, it also noted that house price movements were very regional, with falls in four areas – the south-east, Yorkshire & the Humber, the north-west and north-east. The biggest fall was in the north-east at 3.1%.
Everywhere else, there were small movements upwards, all 0.6% or under. The exception was Wales where the monthly rise was 2.4%.
In London, average prices rose 0.2% in October to stand at £390,720 – up 8.7% over the year.
Sales volumes for August – the latest month for which transaction data is available – were 74,767, up 15% from 65,014 in August 2012.
In London, house sales were also up, standing at 10,302, up 14% from the 9,007 of August last year. The biggest percentage rise was in houses selling for over £2m where there was a 63% uplift.
Repossessions continued on their downward trend, averaging 1,277 per month between May and August. In August itself there were 1,200 repossessions, down 29% from the 1,682 of August last year.
The Land Registry announced its data yesterday, as the Government pulled the plug on Funding for Lending for mortgages.
Comments
Paul
FLS was meant to go to small businesses anyway, and FLS has not been withdrawn, it is still availble in the whole country.
The FPC said from here on the Funding for Lending scheme, under which banks receive cheap funding from the Bank of England for every pound of net lending they themselves hand out, would be focused entirely on small businesses.
Just not for funding cheap mortgages.
The Bank’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC), chaired by Governor Mark Carney, said that starting from January banks would no longer get cheap loans from the Bank in exchange for lending to households through mortgages and other debt.
I agree HTB should be withdarawn as well though.
Carney has lost the plot. Take London out of the equation and the rest of the country still needs the support of the FLS. Is this the worst smoke screeen in history to get the money to small businesses? Despite the lack of authority to intervene the answer is to curb the Help to buy and especially in London. It's for first time buyers really and who needs a £600k first house with £90k of tax payers funds. Curb it to £250 000. Other info suggests the London boom is not necessarily down to mortgage lending but foreign cash. Come on Carney get real, the rest of the UK is bumping along and there is more chance of a bubble from pavement bubble gum.
So worked up I forgot to put my name to the comment below!
What a ridiculous report. Price reductions "only" in the north-west, north-east, Yorkshire, Humber and the important south-east. That's about a third of the housing stock in the country! Add the other areas where prices are static and we DO NOT have a booming market.
There is so much misinformation flying around at the moment that even the Governor of the Bank of England seems to think that the whole of the UK housing market is beginning to overheat. I await with anticipation the next reliable report which is likely to be waiting for Goddo!
PS: The next time I hear someone saying on tv that they cannot afford to move out of London because house prices are too high in the countryside I shall throw a rock at the box!
Let's just wait for the Halixax figures to come out suggesting house prices are falling! The 6% is certainly in line with our data in Essex