House prices rose by 3.9% last month compared with April, the Halifax has said.
The lender put May’s average house price in the UK at a ‘seasonally adjusted’ £184,464 – up 8.7% on a year ago.
In May 2013, the Halifax put the average UK house price at £166,767. Since then, there have been monthly rises, with the exceptions of December (a drop of 0.5%), March (down 1.2%) and April (down 0.3%).
The 3.9% rise in May is by far the largest monthly rise in the last year noted by the lender.
The Halifax figure of £184,464 is very close to that of Nationwide’s figure for May of £186,512, although Nationwide said the monthly increase was much lower at 0.7%.
Comments (3)
Certain price brackets in home counties going up 0%!
OPEN INVITATION.
Please could as many people as possible respond to this article. I am forever telling the media down here in the south-west that prices are going up at around 3.9% PER ANNUM, certainly not per month and that London with its massive housing stock is continually distorting the figures.
What's going on in your areas chaps? We are the guys who know exactly what prices are doing at this minute.
Cheers,
Richard
Is anyone anywhere able to tell me how these figures are worked out? I've asked before and I'm none the wiser. If the Halifax just grab a list of purchase prices from the mortgage application forms they receive and work out the average, then surely the figures are useless and not worth a carrot. That's all they give you is an average (big deal) it doesn't tell you what general property VALUES are doing. Eg the average price of properties I sell in a month vary massively – it doesn't mean that VALUES in my area vary massively. Unless I'm missing something I don't see why anyone thinks the Halifax average price is important.