UK House Prices Rise Strongly in June
June 28 2017 - 2:00AM
Dow Jones News
By Toby Luckhurst
LONDON--U.K. house prices rose strongly in June, reversing three
consecutive months of declines.
Prices were up by a monthly 1.1% in June, Nationwide Building
Society's data showed, improving from May's 0.2% decline and
breaking the longest run of monthly declines since 2009. Compared
with June last year, house prices grew by 3.1% --accelerating from
a 2.1% annual rise in May and 2.6% in April.
The price rises were above expectations, with economist
forecasting only modest gains.
Nationwide's Chief Economist Robert Gardner said after two
weaker months, annual growth "has returned to the 3-6% range that
had been prevailing since early 2015." However, Mr. Gardner said
there was a shift in regional house price trends, with the gap
between the strongest performing region, East Anglia, and the
weakest, the North, narrowing to its smallest on record.
London's house price growth slowed to 1.2% on an annual
basis--the second slowest of the U.K.'s 13 regions and the weakest
growth rate for the capital since 2012..
Whether house prices hold up as Britain disentangles itself from
the European Union matters to the overall health of the economy.
Over the past three decades, U.K. households have cut spending
every time that house prices have fallen.
Write to Toby Luckhurst at toby.luckhurst@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 28, 2017 02:45 ET (06:45 GMT)
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