LONDON (Reuters) -British annual house price growth marked a further “sharp” slowdown in December, mortgage lender Nationwide said on Friday, adding that the final month of 2022 also saw prices record their worst run since 2008 on a monthly basis.
In annual terms, house price growth slowed to 2.8% in December from 4.4% in November, Nationwide said, compared with the 2.3% growth forecast in a Reuters poll.
The lender said prices dipped 0.1% in December compared with November, the fourth consecutive monthly price fall and the worst run since the financial crisis. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a fall of 0.7%.
“While financial market conditions have settled, mortgage rates are taking longer to normalise and activity in the housing market has shown few signs of recovery,” Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said in a statement.
“It will be hard for the market to regain much momentum in the near term as economic headwinds strengthen, with real earnings set to fall further and the labour market widely projected to weaken as the economy shrinks.”
(Reporting by Muvija M; Editing by Alex Richardson and Louise Heavens)
