Land Registry: house prices dip 0.2% in February

In comparison, January saw an annual price increase of 7.1% and a monthly rise of 2.5%.

The February data for London shows a monthly increase of 0.6%. At 13.5%, the annual change for London remains "considerably higher" than most other regions, according to the Index.

The average price of property in the capital is now £530,368 in comparison with the average for England and Wales of £190,275.

The North East saw the only annual price fall with a movement of -3.2%, and also the most significant monthly price decrease with a fall of 1.2%.

The North West experienced the greatest monthly price rise with a movement of 1.8%.

The total number of property transactions has decreased over the last year. From September 2014 to December 2014 there was an average of 79,237 sales per month, compared to 78,778 in the same months a year later.

Jeremy Leaf, former RICS chairman and north London estate agent, said:

"The decline in number of property transactions continues to be a worry, with a 6 per cent fall in completions in December compared with the previous year. If people aren’t able to move in and out of the market when they want to, there will be an inevitable knock-on effect for the rest of the economy. On the ground we want to see more balance between supply and demand, and while we expect completions to rise in January and February as landlords attempt to beat the stamp duty hike from April, there remains a woeful lack of supply, which will push prices higher.

"House prices rose again in the year to March but perhaps not by as much as we expected. This suggests that they could go higher still in the next few months as that extra flurry of transactions filters through into the Land Registry’s historic data, before they start to soften."