He said: “The average house price in London is now £531,000, highlighting why it is so hard for someone on an “average” income to get on the housing ladder in the capital”.
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The overall decline of 1.3% compares to a 1.8% drop in the year to September, according to the monthly Producer Price Inflation report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
While Northern Ireland is this year’s fastest riser in terms of average property prices, prices remain 39.5 per cent lower than the pre-financial crisis peak reached in 2007.
It brings the average house price to £286,000 across the UK However, the rise is still much lower than a year previously, when prices were rising by more than 12%.
House price annual inflation was 6.4 per cent in England, 10.2 per cent in Northern Ireland and 1.1 per cent in both Scotland and Wales.
The average house price in England is £299,000, followed by £199,000 in Scotland, £175,000 in Wales and £162,000 in Northern Ireland.
Among starter homes, the ONS said that first-time buyers paid an average of £216,000 in September, 4.3 per cent more than they would have had to have done a year earlier.
“Even if buyers can save up the deposit required, their income may simply not support such a large mortgage, making it very hard to buy on your own”.
The capital’s first-time buyers had an average annual salary of 82,000 pounds in the third quarter, the data shows.
He said: ” We expect house prices to rise by around 6% to 7% in 2016″.
“The scale of disparity between house prices in different regions of the country illustrates the need to not only build more homes, but also to ensure that more properties are built of the right size and in the right places”, pointed out Jeremy Duncome, director of the Legal & General Mortgage Club.
A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said: “We have got Britain building again, with the latest figures showing a 25% increase in the number of new homes over the past year”.
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The ONS gives a simple explanation: “An ongoing shortage of supply coupled with strengthening demand may be behind this increase in the growth rate”.
