Average house prices in the UK have increased in 2009 Article Published: 14:30 29/12/2009 Article Classification: Strategic Land Swindon
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The price of an average house in the UK has increased by £1,517 this year to a level of £205,591 after falling by £31,355 last year according to the property website Zoopla. This adds £39.1bn to the total housing stock following last year's fall of £811.3bn, which now amounts to £5,300bn, a fall of 13.1% from the 2007 £6,100bn peak.

The peak to trough decline was 13.8%. Zoopla adds that prices in England during 2009 went up by 0.9% (minus 13.9% in 2008) and in Scotland by 0.6% but fell by 2.5% in Wales. The company predicts that a burst of activity and higher asking prices in the spring, followed by a fall after the Election to leave prices little changed in 2010 as a whole.
 
The FSA informs us that there were just short of 400,000 UK households in mortgage arrears at the end of the third quarter, down 2.0% in comparison with Q2 but up 16% year on year. Unlike the figures from the CML these statistics include unregulated mortgages (second charges), whilst the FSA uses a narrower definition of arrears. The FSA puts sub-prime lending at less than 0.5% of all loans and mortgages in excess of 90% LTV at 1.6%. They put the level of repossessions at 14,000 a rise of 2.8% during the quarter but a decline of 5% when compared to Q1.