U.K. house prices unexpectedly fell in May for a second month as more people tried selling their properties to cash in on recent gains in value, Halifax said.

“The mixed pattern of monthly price rises and falls so far this year is consistent with a slowing market and is in line with our view that house prices will be flat during 2010,” Martin Ellis, an economist at Halifax, said in the statement. “Further falls in the number of people in employment are curbing housing demand whilst the pickup in market conditions last year has encouraged more homeowners to attempt to sell.”

Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to make 6.2 billion pounds in spending cuts this year may worsen consumer finances and keep housing activity “subdued,” property researcher Hometrack Ltd. said this week. Unemployment rose to a 16-year high in the first quarter and banks are granting less than half the mortgages they did at the peak of the housing boom in 2007.

While interest rates remain at a record low, banks have curtailed lending to help rebuild balance sheets after the financial crisis. Credit availability is “likely to remain restricted for some time,” the Council of Mortgage Lenders said on May 21.