House prices fall almost 9 percent percent in 2008

LONDON (Reuters) - Housing prices in England and Wales fell 8.7 percent in 2008, bringing the average price of a house to 159,900 pounds, property consultant Hometrack said in its monthly survey on Monday.

At 0.9 percent, the pace of monthly decline eased slightly from November's 1.1 percent drop, although prices have now fallen consistently over the last 15 months and 9.3 percent since the start of the credit crunch in August 2007.

British house prices tripled in the 10 years running up to their peak in the middle of last year, but have since fallen as much as 15 percent in other surveys as the global financial crisis has caused the supply of mortgages to dry up.

"Vendors started the year largely unaware that the turmoil in the U.S. financial markets would impact on the value of their home," said Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack.

"However, as the year progressed and the full impact of the financial and economic downturn started to become clearer, so house prices began to fall with the rate of price declines accelerating over the second half of the year."

Source: Reuters