House prices bounce £1,500 in June, but Halifax warns stagnant property market still lies ahead | Mail Online

House prices bounce £1,500 in June, but Halifax warns stagnant property market still lies ahead | Mail Online

House prices bounced by more than £1,500, Halifax has reported, but homeowners have been warned that stagnation still lies ahead.

The average property rose 1 per cent in June, as volatile monthly figures continued to deliver surprise reports from the Halifax index.

However, while Britain’s biggest mortgage lender said there had been ‘a marked improvement’ in house prices over the past 12 months, it cautioned that property values were unlikely to rise this year and sales would not pick up from their low level.

Halifax’s chief economist Martin Ellis said: ‘Continuing low levels of mortgage payments relative to income and recent increases in employment may have helped support house prices so far this year.

We expect little change in prices and sales over the remainder of the year provided that the UK's economic outlook does not deteriorate significantly.’

The average property is now worth £162,417, up 0.5 per cent on a year ago.

Mr Ellis said: ‘There has been a marked improvement in the annual rate of change over the past 12 months. A year ago, in May 2011, house prices were falling at an annual rate of 4.2%. In contrast, there has been broad stability recently with the annual rate between 0% and - 0.5% in each of the past three months.’