British house price growth moderates to 0.1%

British house prices increased by merely 0.1 percent over the month in July, data showed by Nationwide Building Society Thursday.
The growth rate was significantly lower than the one percent rise in June, and registered the smallest gain since April 2013.
British average house prices was 188,949 pounds (around 319,000 U.S. dollars), recording the 15th monthly increase, said British mortgage provider in a press release. When compared with that of a year earlier, the price was 10.6 percent higher.
Robert Gardner, chief economist at Nationwide, commented:" The slowdown was not entirely unexpected, given mounting evidence of a moderation in activity in recent months."
"And there has also been some softening in forward looking indicators, such as new buyer inquiries," noted Gardner.
Matthew Pointon, Property Economist at Capital Economics, said in a note that:" A slowdown in growth was expected, given the drop in sales seen in recent months, and we expect year or two to be characterized by more moderate house price gains."
The Bank of England (BoE), or British central bank, last month launched new measures to cap the households indebtedness caused by the heating housing market and soaring mortgage lending concerned.
Nationwide also said the British government's stamp duty revenues were near the all-time high recorded in fiscal year 2007/08 (ended March 2008), reaching over 10 billion pounds in the twelve months to June 2014.
And Nationwide estimates that London contributed around 42 percent of the total stamp duty paid on residential properties in 2013/14, even though only 15 percent of transaction are in the capital. (1 pound = 1.69 U.S. dollars)