May 10, 2011 | Author

Author Alec Hanson

Halifax’s April House Price Index (HPI) has reported a further fall of -1.4% taking the average house price to £160,395. This now puts the average house price across the UK at it’s lowest for 2 years.

However although this may look like a shocking headline statement, in reality prices have not risen massively over the last two years. Yet we are seeing across the indices a continual fall in house prices, although at a slower pace than previous.

This is in line with predications that this year will continue to see falling prices, although not expected to be of the size of falls that we saw in 2008.

“The latest figures show that the underlying trend in house prices continues to be one of modest decline.” Commented, Martin Ellis, housing economist.

“Weak confidence amongst households, partly due to uncertainty over the economic outlook, is constraining housing demand and resulting in some downward movement in prices…….There are signs that house sales are stabilising albeit at a level lower than the historical average.”

House prices now stand at nearly 4% lower than the mini peak seen in 2010 and although a massive fall of the scale seen in 2008 is not widely expected, analysts do differ on how much of a fall we could see this year and into spring 2012. Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist at IHS Global Insight believes that we could see upto 10% fall, meaning a further 6% to go.

These figures to contrast with the earlier reports by nationwide who although saw a fall in prices, it was much lower at only -0.2%.

For further information read: http://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/media1/research/halifax_hpi.asp