UK house prices 'levelling out'
Britain's residential property market has reached a plateau, the Financial Times' house price index suggests.Prepared by property consultancy firm Acadametrics based on extensions to official figures from the Land Registry, the index shows a 0.9 per cent monthly increase in property values across the UK during February.Most regions of Britain have been at or below the annual growth rate of 7.6 per cent over the last six months, but continued strength in the advancing London market has driven overall growth upwards."If London trends were to ripple out to other regions we would expect to see higher increases in the south-east, but for the moment at least at 0.5 per cent on a monthly basis this is not the case," Acadametrics chairman Peter Williams said.After strong growth throughout the first half of 2006 property pundits forecast a slowdown as affordability constraints began to impact upon the market's foundation of high demand and low supply.This did not immediately occur as the market continued to advance regardless. But three interest rate rises in five months from the Bank of England, culminating in January's shock hike to the current 5.25 per cent base rate, appeared to have finally brought about the predicted soft landing in the new year.Despite this consensus among analysts, Mr Williams said the market was not yet responding to interest rates."We have yet to see the full impact of interest rate increases on the market because with many borrowers remortgaging and using fixed rate mortgages the effect takes time to work through the market," he explained."Measures of consumer confidence suggest this remains low but continued rising prices will impact upon expectations in 2007 even though, at this time, it is largely London driven."
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