London house prices up £28k through 2012
HOUSE prices across the UK crept up through 2012, according to data out yesterday from property website Zoopla, with London leaping further ahead.
Mortgage lending increased again in November, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) revealed, with the first signs that the Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) may be having an effect.
Home purchase loans came in at £12.9bn last month, up a touch on the £12.78bn seen in October.
“Recent signs of modestly improving housing market activity and the likely increasing beneficial impact of the Funding for Lending Scheme on mortgage lending leads us to believe that house prices will be broadly flat over the coming months,” said Howard Archer from IHS Global Insight.
“Some support for house prices should come from recent decent employment growth and likely extended low interest rates,” added the economist.
The average price increased £2,298 to £228,226 in the UK as a whole – a one per cent rise through this year.
And London saw a 6.8 per cent boom, taking average prices up £28,471 to £499,541.
The capital also saw rents rise by 0.2 per cent in November and 6.9 per cent on the year to a new record of £1,104 per month, LSL Property Services revealed today.
That again contrasts with the national picture where rents fell 0.4 per cent on the month to £741 per month.