UK House prices grew by 5.8% in the year to February 2017, 0.5 percentage points higher than January 2017. However this still remains below the average annual house price growth seen in 2016 which was 7.3%.

In terms of housing demand the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors' (RICS) residential market survey for February 2017 reported that housing market activity remained subdued. Transaction volumes and new buyer enquiries are broadly unchanged since November 2016. Despite this, RICS expect near term price expectations to remain positive, albeit steady.

RICS' new buyer enquiries figures are supported by the Bank of England approvals for lending secured on dwellings for February 2017 which showed that the volume of approvals for house purchase decreased by 5.6% compared to February 2016.