House prices remained almost completely flat between April and May, but were up 2.2 per cent year-on-year, the latest LSL Property Services index shows.
The average house price across England and Wales was £305,654 in May, according to the property group which owns the Your Move and Reeds Rains estate agency brands.
The figure was almost unchanged from £305,787 in April and up only slightly on the £299,108 reported in May 2017.
LSL says that a London and the South East are no longer a brake on the market.
Taking into account these two regions, there was a 2.2 per cent annual price growth – taking them out of the equation, the growth rate is lower – at 2.1 per cent, which reverses the trend of most of last year.
It says this is partly due to a change in methodology, which better captures sales of new build properties. These tend to cost more than existing homes and have a particularly strong impact on the average price in London.
The change also reflects a recovery in the capital which has strengthened after months of declines, although transaction levels remain substantially lower than last year.
Every region in the UK now shows positive annual price growth for the last 12 months.
Wales had the highest annual price growth, with prices up 5.2 per cent over the year.
In Monmouthshire prices have risen 13.9 per cent, with a new peak average
price of £291,344, well above the Welsh average of £184,348.
At the other end of the scale, growth is weaker in Yorkshire and the Humber, at 1.2 per cent annually and in the South East where prices are up just 0.6 per cent.
