Prices rise in January

House prices rose by 0.9% in January, says the Land Registry, although annual house price inflation is down to 6.4% from 6.7% in December, putting the annual house price at £186,045. Regionally all regions experienced increases in their average price, says the report, with the highest growth seen in London (13.1%), and the region with the lowest annual rise is Wales (1.3%). On a monthly basis however, the North West was the region showing the most growth, with an increase of 2%. Overall, 19 out of 56 counties displayed negative changes, whilst in terms of cities, Manchester saw a healthy increase in price of 2%, while Liverpool experienced a fall of 1.1%. Transaction volumes were proved to be less than the year previous, as volumes fell to 100,648 between August and November 2007 from 117,173 in the same period in 2006. Economists are predicting little movement in the next few months as the impact of interest rate falls is absorbed into the market, but possible downward movement towards the end of the year as the impact of the upheaval in the economy is more widely felt: In our view, restricted credit availability and stretched affordability will continue to dampen activity levels in the housing market, said Brigid O Leary, economist at Capital Economics. We expect house prices to remain broadly stable over the next few months, but a deteriorating economic outlook and continued buyer uncertainty will eventually take its toll. We expect annual house price growth to turn negative in the second half of the year.