Instruction volumes declined by 1.3% last month, according to Hometrack’s latest national housing survey.
This compares to a decline of 0.8% and 0.4% in December and November respectively.
Meanwhile, the volume of new buyer registrations has declined, down 2.7% last month. This is a fall from the 2.2% decline recorded in December, which helps explain why the average time property spent on the market increased to 8.6 weeks, up from the 8.4 weeks seen in November and the 8.3 weeks seen in December.
In terms of prices, 93.5% of the asking prices were achieved, slightly up from the 93.3% recorded in December.
Some 7.6% of postcodes across England and Wales experienced price increases during December, which compares with 17.6% and 11.2% in November and December respectively.
Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack, says: “Despite national trends pointing to lower numbers of sales agreed, the small monthly increase was as a result of prices rising in just 7% of postcodes - these largely confined to southern England. “The average price of property in rising markets is 35% higher than that of the national average (£212,000 compared to £157,000). This highlights how pockets of the market, where scarcity of supply and equity fuelled demand, are creating upward pressure on prices.”
Separately, the latest Bank of England mortgage data published today reveals that gross lending totalled £13.4bn in December, resulting in gross lending for the year totalling £143.5bn. Net lending totalled £11.5bn for the year, which was the lowest level since records began in 1987, but higher than the Council of Mortgage Lenders' forecast of £8bn.
This is attributed to the relative strength of house purchase activity, which picked up over the latter part of the year, and weak levels of repayments.
CML economist Paul Samter says: "These figures confirm that the mortgage market ended 2009 in much better shape than it started, but it still looks like a slow haul back to meaningful levels of activity. It should be no surprise if January and February this year appear particularly slow, if we are correct in our view that many buyers rushed to beat the stamp duty concession deadline in December."
