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Nationwide  announced thet house prices in the UK fell during the month of February, a combination of extreme weather and the end of the stamp duty holiday were to blame.
Their House Price Index fell 1.0% on the month to stand up 9.2% on the year. This was the largest monthly drop since February 2009.
Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide’s Chief Economist, said it was difficult to gauge “whether February’s fall in prices is just a temporary blip or the start of a new trend.”
On a quarterly basis house prices were up 1.6% in February, down from up 2.0% on the same basis in January.
Gahbauer said there was “evidence from a range of indicators that the market may have lost momentum in early 2010 as the stamp duty holiday ended and house hunters were obstructed by the icy weather.”
He said that new customer enquiries had dropped since the turn of the year and there was a fall in the number of new mortgages taken out in January.

Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Kate Barker warned of headwinds in the UK housing market in evidence Tuesday to the Treasury Select Committee.
She said it was “possible the housing sector will be quite weak through this year.”
Barker said people may have delayed decisions to put their houses up for sale and warned that mortgage finance availability would not return to pre-credit crunch level”