House prices across England and Wales were unchanged in May, and the annual rate of growth fell to its lowest level since January 2014, figures from the Land Registry show.
The data, which is based on sales of non-newbuild properties registered during the month, put the average price of a home at £179,696, still below the pre-crisis peak of £180,990 reached in November 2007.
The standstill in prices follows several months of sluggish activity, underlined by transaction figures from the Land Registry. Between December and March, an average of 61,789 sales were registered each month, compared with 69,282 a year previously.
Beneath the headline price figures, there were big differences in how markets moved around the country. In Wales, prices were down by 0.6% on an annual basis, at an average of £116,377, while in the English regions prices were up by between 1% and 9.1%.
The highest annual growth was recorded in London and the south-east, and the lowest in the north-east of England. Some parts of the country recorded double-digit growth over the 12 months of May, all of them seemingly affected by the ripple effect of strong growth in London.
The highest annual growth outside the capital was in Reading, the Land Registry said, where prices are up by 13.3%. There was also double-digit growth in central Bedfordshire, Brighton, Hertfordshire, Milton Keynes, and other parts of the London commuter belt.
Within London, the borough of Newham, which covers the area around the Olympic Park saw prices grow by 17.5% over the year. With an average price of £301,368, however, the cost of buying in the east London neighbourhood remains well below the capital’s average of £475,961.
On a monthly basis, the largest leap in prices was Stockton-on-Tees, where they were up by 5.8%.
Andy Knee, chief executive of property firm LMS, said rises around the country were good news for homeowners who had been affected by the downturn after 2007.
“These areas were hard hit by the crash and many will only now be starting to see their property values return to previous prices. This means they may now finally escape being mortgage prisoners, offering the opportunity to remortgage and boost incomes,” he said.
“More worryingly, however, is that the average monthly number of property transactions has decreased substantially. We anticipate that figures later on in the year will see a rise but the market should not become complacent.”
Guy Meacock, head of the London office of buying agency Prime Purchase, said the “traditional seasonality” of the market has been absent so far this year.
He said: “There continues to be an imbalance between supply and demand, with people moving less often because of the significant costs associated with doing so.
“There is simply not as much housing stock to buy and with the population of London increasing, this will broadly underpin price growth for the foreseeable future.”