When will House Prices Increase?

Nationwide record house prices across the UK, the figures make very interesting reading.

Below are the UK house prices for 2008, every month house prices have fallen:

• January – .6%
• February – .9%
• March – 1.2%
• April – 1.2%
• May – 2.6%
• June – 1.1%
• July – 1.7%
• August – 1.9%
• September – 1.7%
• October – 1.4%
• November – .4%
• December – 2.5%

To put this into perspective house prices have fallen by 9.6% over the past 6 months and 17.2% over the last 12 months. We think 17% house price drop over 12 months is a substantial decrease in house prices. The UK is in a depression so this reduction is not that surprising, although it is debatable whether this is large decrease.

Since February 1991 the biggest monthly drop in house prices was in May 2008 when prices dropped by 2.6%. The largest increase was in April 2002 when house prices went up by 3.4%.

Considering house prices are already very low it is hard to believe that we will continue to have monthly decreases. Especially considering the Bank of England has cut interest rates to 1.5% the lowest in the banks 315 year history.

The following video is an interview with the chief economist from Nation Wide, who reviews the UK housing market:

Please take all of this information into account and make a prediction as to when monthly house prices will increase?