UK house prices slide by most in five months

Bloomberg

U.K. house-prices fell by the most in five months after Britain’s decision to quit the European Union, although it’s still too early to tell how much Brexit has damped the market, Halifax said.
Prices dropped 1 percent in July, the biggest slide since February, reversing a 1.2 percent gain in June, the mortgage lender said in a statement on Friday. Values were still up 1.6 percent in the three months through July and were up 7.8 percent from a year earlier, to an average 214,678 pounds ($281,765).
The outlook for Britain’s property market is uncertain after Britons voted to leave the EU, even after low borrowing costs and strong demand helped
to boost prices in recent years. The Bank of England cut its key interest rate
to a record low 0.25 percent on Thursday and said both housing transactions and house-price inflation “may decline further.”
“There are signs that house price growth is slowing,” said Martin Ellis, an economist at Halifax. Still, monthly data can be erratic and “it remains too early to determine if there has been any impact on the housing market as a result of June’s EU referendum result.”