LONDON: British house prices took a pre-Brexit hit in December, falling by the most month on month since mid-2012 and rising by their slowest pace in nearly six years in annual terms, according to data from mortgage lender Nationwide.
House prices fell by 0.7 per cent from November, the biggest monthly fall since July 2012, Friday’s data showed. Compared with a year earlier, prices rose by just 0.5 per cent compared with a 1.9 per cent rise in November.
Both readings were below all forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists.
“In one line: A bad end to the worst year since 2012,” economist Samuel Tombs from consultancy Pantheon Macroeconomics said. “Other surveys show that buyer demand fell sharply towards the end of last year, as consumer confidence deteriorated.”
Nationwide said it expected prices to rise at a low single-digit pace in 2019 but its forecast was dependent on the economy continuing to grow modestly, something that looked “unusually uncertain.”
— Reuters
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