The price of the average house price in England and Wales fell by 0.6% last month, according to Nationwides latest data.  The average house now costs £165, 914, which is 0.4% lower than one year ago.  The building society also says that it expects property value to continue to get lower as the remainder of the year progresses.

Nationwides Chief Economist summed up the findings thus: For some time now the residential property market has been moving sideways, as weak demand for homes co-existed with a situation where relatively few homes were coming onto the market.  A further fall in employment would be likely to upset the relatively delicate demand-supply balance and put downward pressure on prices.

Although the Government has stated that it has made more land available for building and is investing £4.5bn in lower-cost homes, the NHF says that this represents a 63% cut on the previous programme of Government spending in this area. NHF campaigns director, Ruth Davison said: What we need to do is build new homes; Governments of all colour have not properly understood that we are in the grip of a housing crisis, and unless they do something about it, an entire generation will be locked out of decent housing.