An agent has said it is time to move on from 2016 – which he described as London’s annus horribilis.

Michael Wilson, sales director of London agent Mountgrange Heritage, said sales prices in the capital are now 15% down from peak.

However, he went on: “Our sales figures in the final quarter of 2016 were outstanding, with December producing our best-ever month for exchanges.

“This supports our feeling that prices have now probably bottomed out.”

Separately, the pace of overall house price growth continues to fall, the website Home has claimed, with the declining London market impacting negatively on the national average.

In January last year, annual house price inflation was 8.2%, compared with 3.1% now, says the site which measures the asking prices of virtually all properties on the market.

The site claims that that total supply is now 1.7% up on last January, with new instructions up 10% year on year.

The largest increases in supply were in Scotland (+23%) and the east of England (+18%). The lowest supply figures were in the east midlands (+5%), west midlands (+6%) and the north-east (+6%).

Doug Shephard of Home said: “This is a relatively rare event for vendors, who often prefer to defer the decision to sell until after the festive period.

“Such a ‘rush to exit’ may have been brought about by several factors, including the changes in buy-to-let taxation, overvaluation, fears of rising interest rates and falling prices.”

According to Home, the east of England was the UK’s best performing region in 2016, with prices rising 10.2%.

By contrast, house prices across London slipped 1.1%.