Nationwide: House prices still falling

Date:Thursday 2nd October 2008
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House prices are still falling, according to the latest figures from Nationwide.

They are expected to continue dropping in the short term, although Nationwide predicts that they will stabilise over the long term.

The average house price was £164,654 in August, compared to £161,797 in September.

This represents a monthly drop of 1.7 per cent and an annual change of 12.4 per cent.

Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's chief economist, said that house prices have now fallen for 11 consecutive months, although the monthly rate of fall has hardly changed over the last three months.

She said the slowdown was brought about by higher costs and reduced availability of finance from the credit crunch.

Nationwide has also said that the fastest price falls are in Northern Ireland, while Scotland has the strongest annual price change.

In addition, northern England is now outperforming the south for the first time since 2005.

It predicted that the turmoil in the financial markets is likely to affect sentiment within the London housing market.