According to the Halifax, house prices fell for a sixth straight month in September. A 0.4 percent monthly decline followed a marginally shallower revised 1.8 percent drop in August and steepened the yearly decline from minus 4.5 percent to minus 4.7 percent. However, last month's figures were still on the firm side of the market consensus and average prices remain £39,400 above their pre-pandemic levels.

The quarterly change, the best guide to underlying developments, now stands at minus 1.8 percent, down from minus 1.2 percent in the three months to August and the weakest print since the three months to February. Regionally, prices were lower across the board with the South East (minus 5.7 percent) again recording the steepest annual drop. With market activity cooling, the Halifax expects house prices to fall further in 2024 but with signs that Bank Rate may have peaked and following some reductions in fixed rate mortgages, additional falls should be relatively gradual.

Today's update puts the UK RPI and RPI-P at 34 and 33 respectively, both measures showing economic activity in general now running well ahead of market expectations.

Prices are expected to fall 0.8 percent on the month after a 1.9 percent drop in August.

The Halifax House Price Index (HPI) is the UK's longest running monthly house price measure with data covering the whole country going back to January 1983. The index is based on the largest monthly sample of mortgage data, typically covering around 15,000 house purchases per month, and covers the whole calendar month. In March 2016 Markit announced that it would be acquiring the Halifax HPI from Lloyds Banking Group. Halifax continues to publish the index on behalf of Markit and both the name and the basic methodology remain unchanged. However, in May 2020, the annual growth measure was changed from the average of the last three months to just the latest month.

Home values affect much in the economy - especially the housing and consumer sectors. Periods of rising home values encourage new construction while periods of soft home prices can damp housing starts. Changes in home values play key roles in consumer spending and in consumer financial health. During the first half of this decade sharply rising home prices boosted how much home equity households held. In turn, this increased consumers' ability to spend, based on wealth effects and from being able to draw upon expanding home equity lines of credit.