The nation's biggest mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday.According to its latest survey, that increased the annual rate of house price falls to 14.9%, as against the 13.7% rate in the 12 months to October.

House prices fell 2.6 percent on the month, the biggest decline since September 1992, when the housing market was still in deep decline as Britain was just emerging from a year-long recession. That took the three-month annual rate of decline down to 14.9 percent in November, a new low since records began in 1983, Halifax said.

Last week, the Nationwide building society said the pace of house price decline had eased off, with prices down 13.9% in the year to November. The figures boosted expectations for the Bank of England to deliver another bold cut in interest rates when its monthly meeting concludes at 12 p.m., after last month's shock 1.5 percentage point reduction to 3 percent.

 

"The combination of high house prices in relation to earnings, constraints on householders' incomes and spending power, and the decline in the availability of mortgage finance since the summer of 2007 has curbed housing demand," said the Halifax's chief economist, Martin Ellis. Most analysts reckon the central bank will slash borrowing costs by one percentage points after a raft of dismal data this week suggested the economy has taken a sharp turn for the worse.

 

"The very sharp fall in house prices reported by the Halifax adds extra late pressure on the Bank of England to deliver a very large interest rate cut today," said Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight.

 

The mortgage lender calculates the annual rate of decline by comparing the average house price over the past three months with the average for the same three-month period the year before. The Halifax data showed the average price of a home fell to 163,605 pounds, in November, a level not seen since July 2005 and a 18 percent fall from their peak in August 2007.

 

Last month, Halifax said house prices fell 2.2 percent on the month in October for an annual three-month decline of 13.7 percent.the nation's biggest mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday.According to its latest survey, that increased the annual rate of house price falls to 14.9%, as against the 13.7% rate in the 12 months to October.