House price growth in England and Wales dipped in April from the previous month, bolstering impressions that the market could be approaching a tipping point as rate-rises finally bite.

The seasonally adjusted figures from the Land Registry, which lag other house-prices measures, showed that house prices posted a monthly increase of 0.6 per cent in April, down from 1 per cent in March. The increase pushed the average cost of a home to £179,935, the government agency said.

The slowdown came despite a red-hot market in London, where prices were up 2.3 per cent in the month to give a 15.6 per cent annual pace.

For the whole country, the annual pace of growth hit 9.1 per cent, up from 8.3 per cent a month earlier, due to weakness in the market a year ago.

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Other recent surveys of the housing market have indicated that it could be set to slow sharply.

Figures released yeterday by the British Bankers’ Association showed that the number of mortgages approved fell, from 75,100 in March to 64,800 last month. The value of approvals (excluding remortgaging) also fell, by 10 per cent, to £9.9 billion.

Earlier this week, Hometrack, the property website, found that the number of sales of houses rose by just 4.3 per cent this month, down from a 9.6 per cent increase in April, while the number of new buyers registering with agents failed to rise at all.

The weakness of demand fed into a slight slowdown in house-price inflation.

Prices rose by 0.6 per cent over the month, the report said, taking the annual pace of inflation among properties surveyed by Hometrack to 6.7 per cent, from 6.8 per cent the previous month.

A housing slowdown had been widely forecast after the Bank of England voted to raise rates four times since last August. A fifth rate rise is expected soon and some analysts are forecasting that base rates could climb as high as 6 per cent this year.

The Hometrack report confirmed that house-price growth is being led by London, the South East and East Anglia, with other regions experiencing only subdued house-price rises.

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