Average house prices are standing at £196,829 this month, Nationwide has reported – very slightly down on December’s figure of £196,999.

Nationwide puts annual house price inflation at 4.4%.

Nationwide economist Robert Gardner said that looking ahead, “the risks are skewed towards a modest acceleration in house price growth”.

He said that with interest rates likely to stay on hold for longer than previously anticipated, demand for homes is likely to strengthen in the months ahead.

Separately, the NAEA said that the supply of homes for sale has almost halved in the last decade.

It said that the average agency branch last month had 37 properties, compared with 72 per branch in December 2005.

The figure is also down from the average of 45 properties in December 2014.

There were 360 applicants registered per branch last month, compared with 302 in December 2005.

The NAEA also reported that 44% of its members are seeing an increase in buy-to-let and second home purchasers trying to beat the April 1 deadline for when the 3% Stamp Duty surcharge comes in.

There was a 6% rise in mortgage lending by the big high street banks in 2015, with the year ending strongly.

Last month, mortgage borrowing by both value and number was 24% higher than in December 2014.

Altogether, there were 75,745 mortgage approvals, of which 43,975 were for house purchase.

The average size of mortgage for house purchase was £177,000, the British Bankers Association reports.