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House prices dropping more than £6,000 in September combined with an unstable economy has led to fears of a housing market crash. Halifax, a branch of the state-run Lloyds Banking Group,reported a 3.6% decrease each month in house prices which is the highest in the past 27 years. Needless to say, economists were shocked by these numbers.

London’s prime real estate is capturing increasing interest from international buyers.  Due to the wavering economy in the Eurozone paired with the UK’s stable economy, London is drawing in more and more big spenders.

The latest survey by Rightmove has revealed that asking prices for homes have jumped by an average of 3.2% in the last month.

In reality this 3.2% rise equates to £7,000 and is said to be a result of the short supply of properties in popular areas like London.

Latest figures released today by Nationwide have shown that UK house prices have now recovered to the same level that they were a year ago.

This means that house prices have now risen for the last five consecutive months with the average house price rising but 0.9% last month to £161,816 - that's almost identical to the price in September 2008.

The building society has warned that these rises were unlikely to increase at their present rate, especially if properties continue to flood the market.

Halifax is reporting that the average price in the UK has risen by 0.8% to £160,193 - the second increase in a row.

Martin Ellis, a housing economist, said: “Demand for housing has increased since the start of the year due to better affordability and low interest rates. This, together with low levels of property available for sale, has boosted house prices over the last few months."

New research from the National Housing Federation (NHF) has predicted that house prices will not return to their pre-slump levels until around 2014.

Despite many lenders reporting a stabilisation in prices, the NHF predicts that overall house prices will fall by 12.2% this year with next year seeing a further 4.6% drop.

There's been a month-on-month rise in house prices in England and Wales for the first time since January 2008.

The survey by the Land Registery found that there was a 0.1% rise in June compared with May, bringing the average price of a house to £153,046.

The figures are thought to represent a "flattening" of prices, although the value of the average home was down 14% on the same month a year earlier

Click here to read more about house prices.

Despite the recent doom and gloom about falling house prices, it appears that Brits still love investing their houses and are starting to get the property bug again.

According to new research from Mintel, one in three adults believe that now is a good time to buy property with just 15% of the Brits surveyed admiting that the downturn had put them off investing in bricks and mortar.

Housebuilder Persimmon has said sales rates continued to improve amid further encouraging signs from the housing market.

The firm claimed that house sales were consistently ahead of last year, with the rate of decline in prices also showing signs of stabilisation.

Persimmon also pointed to historically low levels of cancellations, which it said was another indicator of an improved housing market.

House prices fell in June after four months of growth.

Property website Rightmove said that the average price dropped by £1,000 in June, 0.4%, to £226,436, compared with a rise of 2.4% in May. Prices are now down 5.5% over the past 12 months.

People hoping to add to the value of their home during the property downturn should look into increasing the number of bedrooms, a report claimed.

Following last weeks announcements by Halifax and Nationwide that house prices rose in May, official government figures released today claim that there was a 1.1% rise in April.

Nearly one in four Britons has cancelled their home insurance in a bid to save money due to the economic downturn, research has showed.

Around 22% of people said they had either cancelled or not renewed their home contents cover during the past 12 months, while 17% no longer have buildings insurance, according to the Association of British Insurers.

A survey by PropertyLive.co.uk has shown that one in five people who view properties have no intention of buying and are just nosing around other people's homes.

Around 20% of people admitted they had been to look around a property they could never afford and at a time when they were not looking to buy a home.

One in eight people said they could not resist the temptation of nosing around other people's homes, while 7% said they liked to do house viewings to get ideas for their own property.

The average price of a UK house rose by 2.6% during May according to a report by Halifax, in a further sign that conditions in the property market are improving.

The increase was the biggest seen since October 2002 and means that the average UK property now costs around £158,565.

According to mortgage lender Nationwide, house prices fell by 0.4% in April - the equivalent of £151,861.

The slip will squash hopes of recovery prompted by the 0.9% rise in prices reported by Nationwide last month.

The lender said that figures for April did not rise as much as it would have expected given normal seasonal patterns.

It is expected that tomorrow's budget will announce that the cut in stamp duty, announced last September, will be extended by a further 3 months until the end of 2009.

The stamp duty "holiday" applies to all houses with a value of up to £175,000 and is expected to to form part of a £1 billion housing package in Alistair Darling's budget.

According to the latest government data, UK house prices fell 12.3 per cent in the three months up to February.

The figures from the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), compare house prices between December and February to the same period last year, showing the average price of a UK home as now being £189,813 — a 12.3 per cent year-on-year decline.

According to property website Rightmove, property asking prices in England and Wales have risen by 1.2% in the past month.

Barclays Bank today predicted that house prices would fall a further 15%, which translates to a 30% peak to trough correction. John Varley, group chief executive of the high street bank, cited irresponsible lending as a contributing factor for the current economic crisis.

Varley's bleak outlook extended to the job market:

The Halifax has confirmed earlier reports from Nationwide that house prices have dropped by 1.7% over the past month, restoring the average house price to a level not seen since the summer of 2006. The news came off of the back of the Bank of England announcing that interest rates would be kept at 5% for the 4th month running amidst fears of growing inflation.

Nationwide have released their house price index figures today and it certainly makes for grim reading if you’re a homeowner. There’s been an 8.1% drop in the last year, with the average house price now at £169,316 – that’s £15,000 cheaper than in the same month last year.

House prices have now fallen for nine months in a row and are at their lowest level since August 2006.

With Wimbledon fever once again gripping the nation, it has been revealed that it is not just strawberry stockists who are cashing in.

Landlords and residents who happen to live near the All England Tennis club are hitting the jackpot by renting out rooms to players participating in the tournament.

So the news out today is that 23,000 people are staring down the barrel of negative equity, but what does it mean?

In a report released by the Halifax, house prices in the UK fell by 2.4% in May pushing house prices to 3.8% lower than they were 12 months ago. In a BBC report, chief economist at Global Insight Howard Archer described the figures as "undeniably alarming" as tight lending conditions and stretched buyer affordability continue to reverse the trends of the past decade.

The BBC is today reporting that house prices have sharply declined in March, falling by 2.5%.

The UK has no ‘affordable’ housing markets, claims a new survey…

After examining the housing affordability situation of 227 urban markets, the 2008 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey ranked the UK as the third most unaffordable market in the English-speaking world.

Some 25 of the 28 markets in the UK are ‘severely unaffordable’ and three markets are ‘seriously unaffordable’.

House prices fell for the fifth month in a row during February but there were signs demand is beginning to increase on the back of lower interest rates, figures show...

The average cost of a home in England and Wales fell by 0.2% during the month to £174,400, according to property information group Hometrack. At the same time the annual rate of house price inflation continued its downward trend to stand at just 1.4%, its lowest level since April 2006.

Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, said: “Despite the continued weakness in underlying prices.

In the first of a series of exclusive Stunning Views polls carried out by the headlineproperty website, a resounding 79 per cent of property journalists said they believed UK house prices would continue to fall in 2008.

Journalists who believed that prices would continue to fall this year were asked to estimate by how much figures would drop going forward. While individual responses differed sharply, the average decline was projected to be between five and six per cent.