Property prices are continuing to fall in London, according to data released by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
The data covered the period from December 2014 to February of this year, with more surveyors saying that prices had fallen rather than increased. The situation is reversed in the rest of the UK, however, where property values are continuing to rise, according to the RICS figures.
Prices have risen most steeply in Scotland and Northern Ireland but also accelerated in the south west and south east of England, where the lack of housing drove up values.
The fall in prices in the London area was the sixth consecutive drop recorded by the RICS.
Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at the Institute, said that buyers believe that properties will become more and more out of reach. Respondents to a recent survey said that they think values will increase by as much as 30 per cent over the next five years.
Other surveys, by Halifax and Nationwide, have reported a fall in property prices across the whole of the UK in February of this year, compared with figures for the previous month.
Analysts are predicting that the value of property will rise more slowly in 2015 than they did last year. The general consensus among them is that the rate of growth will be between 3.5 and 4 per cent, roughly half that of last year, although the exact figure varies from lender to lender. Nationwide says that values rose by 7.2 per cent and Halifax report an increase of 8.5 per cent. The figures mask huge regional differences. According to Nationwide, London house values increased by 17.8 per cent in 2014 but by a mere 1.4 per cent in Wales.
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