Contradictory HPI figures show a fall in House Prices in 2011

After some relatively positive figures from the Nationwide’s House Prices Index, both the Land Registry November 2011 HPI statistics and the Halifax December 2011 HPI figures show a fall in house prices in 2011.

December was a negative month for Halifax with a fall in prices by -0.9%, ending the final three months of 2011 -0.1% lower than the previous quarter. This leave prices of the average home at £160,063

November was actually a slightly positive month with a growth of 0.3% leaving the average house price very similar to Halifax at £160,780.

2011 “The Turbulent year”

Although Halifax ended the year down -1.3%, and Land Registry was down -1.9% in November, this just continues the turbulent nature of 2011.

With a mixture of rises and falls; Halifax had 6 monthly falls and 5 increases, with 1 month unchanged, it is unsurprising that in essence 2011 was a flat year.

The number of property transactions has also decreased over the last year. In June to September 2010, there was an average of 62,293 sales per month. In the same months this year, the figure was 60,805 sales per month.

Commenting, Martin Ellis, housing economist, said:

“Whilst there was a modest fall overall in prices during 2011 with an annual decline of 1.3% in December, house prices held up well last year in the face of the difficult and deteriorating economic climate and substantial pressure on households’ finances.

“If the UK can avoid recession, we expect broad stability in house prices in 2012. There is, however, considerable uncertainty regarding the prospects for the UK economy which will, to a large extent, depend on how events in the Eurozone unfold. In addition, the extent to which households choose to reduce their debts will also affect growth. As a result, the outlook for house prices is also uncertain.”

London Bucks the trend

Throughout 2011 the fairly consistent view from the major House Price Indices was that London was the one region that had been bucking the overall UK trend.

The Land Registry found that by the end of November London had an annual increase of 1.4% bringing the average house price there to be £342,749 – more that twice that of the UK average.

Other regions have emulated the turbulent nature of the overall economy with varied performance through the year. The North East and North West have seen the biggest annual falls upto November of -5.4% and -4.8% resprectively.