July saw the tenth consecutive fall in house prices this year with price falls more concentrated in southern England, Hometrack has said.

Average house prices were down by 1.2% over the month, compared to a 1% fall in June and a 4.4% fall over the last 12 months – this represents the lowest annual rate of growth since the Hometrack survey began in 2001.

Market activity has fallen over the last 3 months with demand down 20%. The vast majority of homeowners it seems, are choosing not to move, but deciding instead to play a waiting game.

Richard Donnell, Director Research, Hometrack said: “This has been reflected in asking prices being achieved with Southern England taking the brunt of price falls. Over the last 12 months average prices fell between -5.2% in the South West, -5.1% in London and -4.6% in the South East.

However, these falls represent modest declines off a high base – all these regions saw relatively strong high price growth between 2006 and mid 2007.

The greatest concentration of house price falls was in London, some 77%, where prices saw an average price drop of -1.3%. This was followed by the South East where prices were down across 69% of the region and the South West (64%).”

Achieved asking prices remain weak and time taken to sell increases…
The proportion of asking price being achieved has also slipped back from 91.6% to 90.9% over the last month. On a regional basis pricing is weakest in London and the South West (90.2%) and highest in Yorkshire and Humberside (92.4%).

Meanwhile the time taken to sell property has increased to 11 weeks – this compared to just 6.5 weeks in June 2007.

Average house prices in July were down across 65% of the country compared to 59% last month.