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| UK house prices 'dropped by 1.5%' | |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| UK house prices recorded their first monthly fall since June with a 1.5% drop in February, the Halifax has said. | UK house prices recorded their first monthly fall since June with a 1.5% drop in February, the Halifax has said. |
| The drop was caused by the end of stamp duty relief, the poor weather and more properties being put up for sale. The average home is now worth £166,587. | The drop was caused by the end of stamp duty relief, the poor weather and more properties being put up for sale. The average home is now worth £166,587. |
| The Halifax, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, said that prices were still 4.5% higher than a year earlier, but the market had slowed in recent months. | The Halifax, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, said that prices were still 4.5% higher than a year earlier, but the market had slowed in recent months. |
| Prices are still 8% higher than the trough in the market in April 2009. | Prices are still 8% higher than the trough in the market in April 2009. |
| Freeze | |
| The icy weather has been widely noted as a major factor in the latest round of data about the UK housing market. | |
| The conditions slowed activity, with many potential homebuyers less tempted to look around homes or finding it difficult to travel. | |
| The end of the temporary stamp duty relief was also regarded as a factor in the slowdown. The stamp duty threshold dropped back to £125,000 on 1 January, after the threshold was at £175,000 for just over a year. | |
| Both these issues were cited by the Nationwide building society, which said last week that prices had fallen by 1% in February. | |
| Mortgage lending also suffered at the start of the year. Recent figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders also showed that gross lending for home loans fell by 32% in January compared with December, to a 10-year low of £9.1bn. | |
| But the Halifax also pointed to a rise in the number of people putting their home on the market as a factor affecting prices. | |
| "An increase in the number of properties available for sale has helped to reduce slightly the imbalance between supply and demand," said Martin Ellis, Halifax housing economist. |