House prices in England and Wales fell at their slowest pace in six months, research company Hometrack said on Monday, adding to mounting evidence that the housing market may be stabilising. Hometrack said it was confident that house prices will start rising over the next few months, and raised its 2005 forecast of house price inflation to 3.0 percent from unchanged. The research firm said its measure of average house prices, based on agreed sales reported by estate agents, fell 0.1 percent in March, leaving prices 0.71 percent lower than a year ago, the report said.
The average property price stood at 162,300 pounds, down from 162,500 in the previous month and from a peak of 167,700 in June last year.
"House price deflation over the past nine months looks set to end, with house prices remaining broadly flat this month," said John Wriglesworth, Hometrack's housing economist.
"An increase in the number of buyers, helping boost of the number of sales agreed, points to a much strong market in the coming months," he said.
Activity in the housing market picked up, with sales agreed rising by 16.5 percent.
With buyers back to the market, the discounts that are being negotiated on asking price have decreased for the second month running, the report said.
The cities which reported the worst falls were Lincoln, Cambridge, Gloucester, Plymouth and Leicester.
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