British house prices showed a surprise 1% fall in February, ending a run of nine monthly increases in a row, figures from the Nationwide Building Society show today.
Analysts had forecast an increase of 0.4% for the month and Nationwide said it was too early to say if the figures were the start of a new trend or a temporary blip.
The end of a stamp duty holiday on property sales and snowy weather were cited as possible factors behind the price decline.
'In light of low growth in household incomes and elevated levels of unemployment, house prices were beginning to move ahead of the recovery in general economic conditions,' said Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide's chief economist.
'With the longer term stability of the market in mind, it would be a positive development for house prices not to become decoupled from the economic fundamentals,' he added.
'A pause in the upward trend will also be a relief to potential first-time buyers who are no longer benefiting from the stamp duty holiday and for whom affordability had begun to deteriorate again over the course of 2009,' he said.
The UK housing market had recovered quite swiftly from sharp falls seen in 2008 and early 2009, helped by record low official interest rates and a shortage of properties coming on to the market.
The government had also removed stamp duty tax on properties sold for up to £175,000 sterling. From the start of the year, the threshold for the sales tax has been restored to £125,000.
Nationwide said the average price of a property sold in February was £161,320.
