HOUSE prices keep rising
Guardian - UK

July 29, 2004
First-time buyers continued to struggle to get on to the property ladder,
and just two in five people buying their first home were aged between
18 and 30 ...

House prices rose by 2.1% during July, defying recent evidence that the pace of the market was beginning to ease, figures showed today.
In June, house prices rose by only 0.9%, and in May by 1.7%. July's increase pushed the average cost of a UK home up to £154,299, the Nationwide Building Society said in its monthly index.

The latest surge boosted annual house price inflation to 20.3%, the first time it has breached the 20% level for more than a year.

Alex Bannister, Nationwide's group economist, said: "July's increase outstripped our expectation that prices would rise in the 0.5% to 1% range for the rest of the year and appears to have been driven by continued buoyancy in the more affordable sectors and regions of the market."

Prices continued to rise fastest in Scotland, the north and Wales, but an improving labour market in the south, particularly in greater London, has lead to a modest resurgence in price growth in those areas.

House prices have already risen by 12% since the start of the year, and Nationwide said it was likely to review its forecast of 15% house price inflation for 2004.

Mr Bannister said: "While recent anecdotal and survey evidence have suggested the housing market might be starting to slow, our own house price data accords with the recent strength of retail sales and mortgage lending. It is unclear whether the slowdown is yet to translate into hard data, or whether sentiment will prove to have been overly negative."

The property website Hometrack reported a fall of 0.1% in July, while the National Association of Estate Agents reported on July 15 that the average property was selling for 0.2% less in June than in the previous month.