House prices drop in December

Property intelligence firm Hometrack has said that house prices fell by 0.3 per cent in December , though overall growth for 2007 remained positive.

The company's latest house price index has revealed that prices rose by three per cent over last year as a whole, but cautioned that things were getting harder for sellers.

The average time taken to sell a property rose to a record high of 8.3 weeks, the study found.

"Despite the recent cut in interest rates, levels of market activity are likely to remain subdued over the course of 2008. A weak outlook for prices and continued uncertainty among sellers creates the potential for a major lack of housing coming to the market in the first quarter of the year," said Hometrack director of research Richard Donnell.

"Overall we expect average prices to rise by just one per cent over 2008 with sales volumes projected to be down 17 per cent," Mr Donnell added.

Nationwide recently reported a 0.5 per cent fall in prices for December via its own monthly index.

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