Housing prices rise in United Kingdom

       House prices in the United Kingdom rose for a fifth month in September as a lack of homes for sale helped the property market to erase its losses of the past year, Nationawide Building Society said.
       The average cost of a home increased by 0.9 per clent to 161,816 pound (Bt8.63 million), the mortgage lender said. Prices have noe fallen 13 per clent since a peak in October 2007, and they are at a level last seen at the time of Lehman Brothers Holdings's collapse last year.
       The report adds to signs that Britain is pulling out of its worst economic slump in at least a generation as consumer confidence improves and mortgage approvals pick up. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) last week raised its forecast for economic growth in the UK next year, saying the housing lmarket is now stabilising.
       "The most intense phase of the recession and financial crisis has probably passed." Nationwide's chief economist Martin Gahbauer said. "The further increase in house prices is very much consistent with improvements in a broad range of economic and financial indicators,"
       Prices were unchanged from a year earlier in September, the first time they haven't shown an annual drop since March 2008, Nationwide said.
       The number of houses being sold is still below normal and will probably take another 18 months to return to the level before the financial crisis. Rising unemployment and banks' reluctance to lend money are still "headwinds", Nationawide said.
       "It would be surprising to see house prices continuing to increase at the very strong rate seen in recent months," Gahbauer said.
       Prices in all the 13 regions of the UK rose in the third quarter, led by the southwest and Northern Ireland. Home values in greater London increased 3.8 per cent from the second quarter.
       Consumers added 7 billion pound of equity to their homes in the three months through June, the fifth consecutive quarter when new investment in housing exceeded borrowings extended on mortgages, the Bank of England said. This suggests that consumer spending may be slow to recover from the recession.