House prices recorded their"worst run" since 2008 following a fourth consecutive monthly decline in December, according to a closely-watched measure.
Mortgage lender Nationwide's index charted a sharp slowdown in the annual rate of price growth - to 2.8% this month following the 4.4% recorded in November.The decline was much smaller than the 0.7% fall that a Reuters poll of analysts had expected.of September that saw borrowing costs soar and many mortgage lenders, including Nationwide, suspend loans temporarily.
"While financial market conditions have settled, mortgage rates are taking longer to normalise and activity in the housing market has shown few signs of recovery," Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said.
Good - housing ridiculously overpriced driven by years of low interest rates on mortgage lending, the irresponsibility and greed of financial institutions, investors, house builders, and opportunists taking advantage of the situation and shockingly poor government housing policy.
Hopefully they drop by at least 10%.
This idea that house prices should only go upwards is absolute twaddle though isn’t it, so this is fine actually.