LONDON: British house prices slumped by a record 17.7 per cent in the three months to February 2009 compared to a year earlier as the recession continued to bite, home loans provider Halifax said on Thursday.
Halifax, part of Lloyds Banking Group, added in a monthly survey that this marked the biggest 12-month decline since the series began 25 years ago.
Prices also fell 2.3 per cent on a monthly basis in February from January, cutting the average price of a house to 160,327 pounds (180,683 euros, 227,088 dollars), the bank said.
"Continuing pressures on incomes, rising unemployment and the negative impact of the dislocation of the financial markets on the availability of mortgage finance are likely to mean that 2009 will be another difficult year for the housing market," said Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis.
The news came hours before the Bank of England was predicted to cut British interest rates by half a percentage point to a new record low of 0.50 per cent.
Source: Channel News Asia, 5 Mar 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment