The housing report for April 2015 is dismal, according to a report from guardian.com. The growth in house prices throughout the UK had stalled to its slowest in nine years. This was reportedly attributed to election fears of a Labor party win at the polls.
In April 2015, the prices rose at just 5.5 percent compared to March's 9.6 percent, according to UK's Office for National Statistics. This is the largest month-on-month slowdown since April 2006.
Another report from the UK's Council of Mortgage Lenders said that the monthly house purchase lending also fell by 10 percent compared to the same period last year. According to a report from ibtimes.co.uk, the coalition of bankers and lenders with a gross volume of 95 percent of the £1.2 trillion mortgage loan volume in the UK alone said there is a drop in lending among first time buyers. The gross lending in April 2015 was at £15.8 billion, £1 billion less than the previous year's volume.
In a report from the surreycomet.com, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) said, "The pace of annual house price growth fell across the majority of the UK in April 2015." It cited London, which is known as the housing market recovery engine, where prices were just at 4.3 percent in April 2015, the lowest annual growth rate for the area since October 2013.
Despite such low growth rate, London still had the highest average house price, pegged at £493,000, well below its peak hit in August 2014. This is still one third higher than the value of homes in the area during the height of the housing crisis in 2008.
ONS added, "The UK housing market showed signs of easing in April 2015. One of the largest drivers of this fall was the sharp weakening in London annual house price growth, where house prices grew at a slower annual rate than the UK average for the first time since February 2006."