Nationwide House Price Index

[Martin@AS Financial]

As I've said before, I am not a great fan of these HPI's as there are far to many pitfalls when working off national averages based on historical data. However, the highlights from Nationwides are below. Again, it will be interesting to see what Halifax say when they release their set of figures.

(Taken from Nationwide)

• The price of a typical UK house fell by 0.4% in September
• Prices 1.4% lower than one year ago
• Price of a typical home is now £163,964

Commenting on the figures, Robert Gardner, Nationwide's Chief Economist, said:

“UK house prices declined by 0.4% in September, after recording a 1.1% rise in August. Monthly price changes have been impacted by a number of one-off factors this year, such as the ending of the stamp duty holiday that cannot be controlled by the usual process of seasonal adjustment.

For this reason the annual rate of house price change is a better guide to the state of the market at present. On that basis, the housing market remains fairly stable, with prices 1.4% lower than September 2011.

[DimPrawn]

Yawn!

Price houses in gold and recalc the figures.

[doomage]

Surely the best guide to the state of the market is the transactional volumes? How are they looking, and how many are new players and not just sideways movement with those already in the pyramid?

Average house prices at best indicate the state of the mortgage industry, propped up as it is by the taxpayer.