LONDON (ShareCast) - More signs that the UK housing market may be stabilising emerged today as the latest Halifax house price survey showed an unexpected 2.6% rise in May.
The increase comes after a 1.7% month-on-month decline in April and is
better than the 1% fall analysts had been expecting. In the three month to May, house prices fell by 16.3% compared with last year.
Halifax said the average price of a home in Britain rose to £158,565.
"The Halifax data are bound to heighten speculation that the housing market is turning as it is fuelled by sharply reduced mortgage interest mortgage interest rates and the substantial fall in house prices from their 2007 peak levels," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.
"However, we remain sceptical that house prices have bottomed out. Significantly, it is not uncommon for there to be months of rising prices when house prices are still trending down."
Today's figures come after two surveys recorded a slowing in the pace of decline earlier this week.
Figures from the Land Registry showed prices fell by 16.2% in the 12 months to April, but that represented a slight improvement on the year to February, when prices dropped by 16.4%.
Meanwhile, property intelligence firm Hometrack's monthly price index for May held steady for the first time in 20 months. Hometrack's survey found the average house prices were unchanged between April and May at £155,600.
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