House prices fall for the first time in almost TWO YEARS as home ownership hits 32-year low
House prices fell by 0.3 per cent in March, bringing the average price of a property to £207,308
HOUSE prices fell for the first time in almost two years in March, according to Nationwide’s latest property price index.
The average price of a home fell 0.3 per cent to £207,308, following a 0.6 per cent rise in February.
It’s the first monthly fall recorded by the building society since June 2015 and is lower than the 0.4 per cent increase predicted by economists.
Its figures also show that the rate of home ownership has fallen to its lowest level since 1985.
But it's not all bad news, as house prices have still increased by 3.5 per cent based on annual data.
It pushed the annual rate of growth down to a 19-month low - down from 4.5 per cent in February.
The strongest-performing region is the Outer South East, including Bedford, Brighton, Milton Keynes and Southampton - where house prices are up by 6.4 per cent annually.
The weakest-performing region is North East England, where property values are down by 0.4 per cent year on year.
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Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, said around half of regions across the UK have seen house price growth accelerate and the same proportion have seen house price growth slow down - narrowing the gap between the strongest and the weakest-performing regions.
He said: "Interestingly, the spread in the annual rate of change between the weakest and strongest-performing regions was at its narrowest since 1978 at 6.8 percentage points - the second smallest gap on record.
WHAT'S NEXT FOR HOUSE PRICES?
IN the months after the UK voted to leave the EU, house price growth has slowed but there hasn't been a massive impact.
Some regions have fared better than others - especially those outside of London.
Many of the house price indexes are now showing growth in the midlands or other big cities in the UK, rather than the capital.
Read more about what might happen to house prices in our in-depth look into how Brexit will affect our finances.
"The South of England continued to see slightly stronger price growth than the North of England, but there was a further narrowing in the differential."
Some experts have recently pointed to evidence that house price growth has slowed down in places where affordability is already particularly stretched, while there may be more scope for house prices to push up in parts of the country offering better value.
But while the percentage growth in house prices has become more uniform across the country, the change in house prices is still very mixed when compared with their 2007 peak, Nationwide said.
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