Average house prices ended last year at £205,898, according to the Nationwide.
The figure represented annual house price inflation of 4.4%, the same as the previous year.
London’s house price inflation of 3.7% over last year was lower than the UK average – for the first time since 2008, the year that the last housing collapse took hold.
Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said that he expects to see house prices gain around 2% this year, with low interest rates expecting to underpin demand while a shortage of supply will continue to provide support for house prices.
He said that East Anglia was the top performing region in the UK, with average prices up 10.1% last year on an annual basis.
The north was the weakest region, with almost no change in house prices.
Separately, Your Move has said that average rents in England and Wales hit £830 a month in November – a rise of 3.9% year on year.
In London, rents reached an average new high of £1,295.
Comments (1)
Given the Eye audience is slightly more informed of the subject than the average audience for this rather lazy and clichéd annual output from a building society it might be nice to have the numbers qualified.
As presented here this is meaningless garbage that robs Mr Gardner of the respect his position ought to command; the UK transaction average was just short of £280,000 so a figure £74,000 adrift from that without any qualification or explanation where is came from means it is relegated to worthless white noise.
The public is bombarded with expert opinion about property prices, none of it has any credible foundation or consistency, the result of that cost home movers about £8.4 billion last year, that is quite a chunk of economy to go missing because of misinformation.