More market woe: website says prices falling across England and Wales

A new survey claims the market is at its worst for eight years.

The latest market snapshot from property platform Home says house prices have now fallen across England and Wales for the first time since November 2011, as sliding prices in London, southern and eastern England push the national average down. 

Asking prices in the south east and the east regions are now dropping faster and losses have increased over the past year to 2.5 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively. Last month, the south west became the latest domino to fall and prices there are now down 0.5 per cent year-on-year.

However, Home says the national figures obscure significant growth in other regions further north and west. 

Growth has been strongest in Wales and the west Midlands where asking prices are 6.4 per cent and 5.0 per cent higher than they were a year ago. The north west and Yorkshire have also pushed up their average asking prices by 4.3 and 3.4 per cent respectively over the last 12 months.

Overall, supply of property for sale in the UK is up by four per cent year on year. In February 2018, the annualised rate of increase of home prices was 2.3 per cent; today the same measure is minus 0.2 per cent and continues to trend further below zero.

In February the largest regional monthly fall has been in the south west, down 0.6 per cent in the past four weeks.

Meanwhile in January, there were three per cent more properties reduced in price whilst on the market compared to January 2018.

The typical Time on Market for homes on sale in England and Wales has risen to 114 days, six days longer than in February 2018.