This article is from the source 'bbc' and was first published or seen on . It will not be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/business/7925481.stm
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| House prices 'dip a further 2.3%' | House prices 'dip a further 2.3%' |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| House prices fell by another 2.3% in February in the UK, according to the country's biggest mortgage lender. | House prices fell by another 2.3% in February in the UK, according to the country's biggest mortgage lender. |
| HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, said that the average UK home was now worth £160,327. | HBOS, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, said that the average UK home was now worth £160,327. |
| The lender said there were "tentative" signs that housing market activity was beginning to stabilise, but added 2009 would still be a difficult year. | The lender said there were "tentative" signs that housing market activity was beginning to stabilise, but added 2009 would still be a difficult year. |
| The lender's preferred annual change figure - which takes a three month average - is down 17.7%. | |
| When looking at February's prices, the cost of the average home was 17.8% lower last month than in February 2008. | |
| 'Downturn' | |
| The 2.3% monthly fall was more in line with the general downward trend in house prices seen over the past year than the 2% rise in prices reported in January by the lender. | |
| The group's housing economist Martin Ellis said that prices in the three months to February compared to the previous quarter - which provide a more balanced indicator of the underlying trend - were 3.6% lower. | |
| But he did have some guarded good news for those wanting to get on the property ladder. | |
| "While market activity remains at very low levels, there are some tentative signs that activity may be beginning to stabilise. The house price to earnings ratio - a key measure of housing affordability - has fallen to its lowest level for six years," he said. | |
| "Continuing pressures on incomes, rising unemployment and the negative impact of the dislocation of the financial markets on the availability of mortgage finance are, however, likely to mean that 2009 will be another difficult year for the housing market." | |
| The figures come a few days after rival lender, the Nationwide building society, reported that house prices fell 1.8% in February, taking the annual decline in prices to 17.6%. | |
| Although mortgages have become cheaper following a string of interest rate cuts, the demand from lenders for a high deposit, falling prices and householders' fears over job security have put the housing market under severe strain in the past year. |