There are 1.5 homes coming to the market for each one home sold in London, Hometrack claims.

The property information provider said weaker demand over the past 18 months and a reluctance by sellers to accept lower offers was affecting price growth.

Hometrack warned the net result is longer sales periods where London has the longest time to sell of all UK cities at 17 weeks.

The findings came in the latest Hometrack UK Cities House Price Index.

It found Oxford and Cambridge were also experiencing similar issues of the supply of homes for sale growing faster than sales.

The analysis found that overall house price inflation at the 20 cities in the index was up 5.5% in the year to March at £254,900.

This was boosted by 8.1% growth in Edinburgh, 8% in Nottingham and 7.4% in Manchester, areas which Hometrack said were more affordable and had a bigger shortage of properties.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, Aberdeen saw prices drop 6.6% while values in Cambridge were down 1.2%. London saw annual growth of just 1.6%.

Richard Donnell, insight director at Hometrack, said:  “The headline rate of city house price growth continues to be driven by above average increases in regional cities where attractive affordability and a lack of housing for sale is supporting house price inflation.

“This latest report identifies other cities such as Cardiff, Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield as having recorded a sustained uplift in the rate of growth over the last 12 months.

“Whilst demand for housing in London has cooled over the past 18 months and the rate of house price growth has slowed there are some signs that underlying market conditions are improving.

“Last month we reported that residential values in London were falling across more than two fifths of postcodes and this has narrowed to 36% over March.

“Falling asking prices over the last two years, especially in central areas of London, together with deeper discounts from asking to achieved prices and greater realism on the part of sellers is likely to support sales rates and reduce the downward pressure on prices: 2018 could be the year when housing turnover in London starts to plateau having fallen by almost a fifth since 2014.”