Land Registry Reports House Price Increases

The first house price monthly increase in a year and a half has been reported by the land registry in a report this week.

It means the average house price in England and Wales, the areas covered by the land registry, remains above £150,000.  This follows a year and a half of consecutive falls.  It leaves the annual rate of change at a fall of 14%.  These figures while reputable are in slight contrast to the outlook as reported by the Halifax who reported a half point fall in house prices in the same month.

The Land Registry report also highlights bigger increases in the South and the Midlands, while Welsh housing prices continued to fall.  Along with other recent evidence, this suggests a widening in the housing price gap between North and South which had closed in recent years.  This is accentuated by the Land Registry reporting that London prices saw the sharpest increase with a significant 2% rise. 

London has often been the forerunner of price increases for the wider country and many people will be reading this as an extremely positive sign.  With increasing sales and approved mortgages, the stabilisation of the market seems to be underway.