House Price Inflation Up Last Month

The Land Registry has confirmed that house price inflation picked up throughout February in England and Wales despite a slight fall on prices over the course of the month.

Prices fell marginally by 0.3% last month; however they remained 7% higher than at this stage last year due to the vast dip in the market at this point in 2009.  This showed further growth on top of January’s figures when the prices were 5.2% higher than the same period last year.

"[This] points towards a strengthening in the housing market," the Land Registry said, adding it was the fourth monthly rise in a row.

£164,455 is now the average price of a home in England and Wales

"The report does, however, note significant regional variations with London at the top of the tree, showing an annual increase of 11.9%, followed by the South East at 9.4%," said Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Royal institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).

"By contrast, prices in the North East still appear on average to be lower than where they were in February 2009.

"Looking forward, the modest pick-up in buyer enquiries detected in the latest RICS housing market survey is likely to be reinforced by the decision in the Budget to remove stamp duty on property purchases by first-time buyers," he added.

In this week's Budget, Chancellor Alistair Darling announced that stamp duty of 1% on properties worth between £125,000 and £250,000 would be removed for the next two years for first-time buyers.

Posted at 03:04PM Mar 26, 2010 by Marc Stenton in Mortgages & Housing Market  |  Comments[0]