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House prices 'dip a further 2.3%'
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.
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.
David Smith, Dreweatt Neate estate agents
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.
Signs of optimism?
According to the Halifax, house prices are now at the same level as they were in August 2004.
Although Mr Ellis acknowledged that house prices were likely to continue falling in 2009, he said that homes were becoming more affordable.
David Smith, senior partner at Dreweatt Neate estate agents, was more strident in predicting some light at the end of the tunnel for homeowners.
"House prices may have fallen further, but we are now at the point, or certainly very close to the point, at which buyer and seller expectations converge," he said.
"We firmly believe that now and the next six months are the trough for house prices."
Print 2009-03-05
