House prices barely moved between August and September, going down by just 0.2%, the Land Registry has reported.
The average house price in England and Wales is now £177,299 compared with the peak of £181,324 in November 2007.
Annual house price inflation is running at an average of 7.2% but is distorted by 18.4% in London, equating to a rise of £163,973 over the past year. The average London property is now £460,521.
That compares with annual house price inflation of just 1.4% in Yorkshire & The Humber.
Transactions have continued to rise, although the data is historic. In July, the last month for which figures are available, there were 79,214 sales in England and Wales, up 7% from 73,749 in July last year.
However – and most unusually – the Land Registry has given more up to date information on completions.
It says that more than 93,350 residential properties in England and Wales were lodged for registration in September, signalling the probability of recording large growth in transaction numbers for September. Again, though, these would be historic, relating to sales agreed weeks, or months, earlier.
These historic figures are quite misleading due to the many transactions that exchanged contracts months ago but completed much later. 2014 has been a year of long stop completions, mainly due to the shortage of properties for sellers to move on to.
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