House prices shot up to a new peak last month, it has been reported, raising new concerns for affordability by buyers.

This morning LSL and Acadata said the average house price in May stood at £303,200 across England and Wales.

The record price represented annual house price inflation of 4.8% – or 4.9% when taking London and the south-east out of the equation.

In those regions, transactions were down by 19% and 7% respectively in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period two years ago.

Compared with the same period last year, transactions in London were 29% down.

The average price in London stood at £615,838, up just 0.1% on a monthly basis.

In other regions, the west midlands stood out with annual house price inflation at 5.1%.

However, the area with the highest annual house price inflation was Merseyside, with prices up 6.2%, fired by a boom in Liverpool.

The LSL/Acadata house price survey paints easily the rosiest picture – for vendors, that is.

Its figure of 4.8% annual inflation is at odds with data from Nationwide, Halifax and the Office for National Statistics.

The concern for most agents will be that what starts in London always percolates out to the wider market, which already appears to be happening in the rest of the south-east.