Halifax Publishes House Price Report for May 2011

The latest house prices report published by Halifax, Lloyds Banking Group mortgage branch, on June 7th suggests that property values in Great Britain rose by 0.1% in May.

Let us remind that one month earlier house prices across the country decreased by as much as 1.4%. However, in May prices already reached £160,519. Although higher than in April, this figure is still 1.2% lower than in the previous quarter and 4.2% lower than in May 2010.

According to Martin Ellis, economist at Halifax, house prices in the UK are definitely decreasing. He is determined that this trend is due to low wages, high level of inflation and growing taxes.

Experts at Halifax, however, hope that the downward trend will soon be over. Of course, they are not expecting property values to skyrocket, but stability won't hurt.

The International Monetary Fund is less optimistic. Its specialists are concerned that the "softness" of the UK housing sector might negatively affect the country's economic recovery.