House Price Index of Land Registry, as one of the most respected property price indicator, revealed a slight decrease of 0.3% in house prices in April compared to March; yet the annual house prices is still down by 16.2% in England and Wales when comparing to the previous year.

House price in UK has been watched closely and carefully by the economists and experts since first quarter of 2008 - when the house prices started to fall from its peak. According to House Price Index of Land Registry, there is a decrease of 16.2% in annual house prices in England and Wales in April 2009, leaving the average property price to £152,898. The house price in April demonstrated a significant decrease over the year; however, records showed that this annual drop of 16.2% has actually remained the same as the previous month, which is the biggest fall on the record.

While there is a large decrease in Annual House Price, the monthly house price has only fell by 0.3% in England and Wales; which is slightly less than the previous month of 0.4% and is recorded as the smallest decrease for more than a year. Besides, the report illustrated that house prices in 6 out of 10 regions had increased during April - where London has recorded an average of 1.4% increase specifically. Moving away from regions with increasing house prices, the 0.3% fall in UK monthly property price in April was explained to be dragged down by the most in the Northeast and Southwest regions.

The fall in house prices seem to have moderated slightly as analysed by most of the economists. Correspondingly, Nationwide found a 1.2% increase in UK house prices in May, which is a result of the second increase in the last 3 months.

Warning to the Buyers

Things seem to be more optimistic in current property market. However, given the fragile economic situation, the house price is constrained by a number of on-going struggles during recession and should expect to remain low for the coming months.

On-going problems such as the mortgage market as well as the steady increase in unemployment rate all over the UK would restrain the house price to stay low in the near future. Therefore, it has been criticised that it would take a while for the average property price to go back up to what it was in the first quarter of 2008.

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