LONDON (Reuters) -British house prices edged higher in April, rising 0.1% from March and up 1.1% from a year earlier, figures from mortgage lender Halifax showed on Tuesday, a slight acceleration from March’s 0.4% annual growth as interest rates stay high.
“The reality is that average house prices have largely plateaued in the early part of 2024,” Halifax’s head of mortgages, Amanda Bryden, said.
Economists polled by Reuters expect the Bank of England to keep interest rates at a 16-year high of 5.25% when it announces its May rate decision on Thursday, and financial markets think rates are unlikely to fall before August.
Tuesday’s house price data marks a return to growth after prices dropped by 0.9% on the month in March, which was the first decline in six months.
Halifax said the average house price in April was 288,949 pounds ($362,284).
($1 = 0.7976 pounds)
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Kate Holton and Sachin Ravikumar)
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