House prices up 1 percent in June

LONDON (Reuters) - House prices rose unexpectedly in June, though the housing market is likely to hold broadly steady in the remainder of 2012, mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday.

Halifax said house prices rose by 1 percent in June, confounding economists' forecasts for a 0.2 percent decline. House prices in May rose by 0.4 percent, a downward revision from an originally reported 0.5 percent.

In the three months to June compared with a year ago, prices fell by 0.5 percent, beating forecasts for a 0.8 percent decline.

Halifax economist Martin Ellis said that low levels of mortgage payments relative to income and recent increases in employment may have helped support house prices so far this year.

"We expect little change in prices and sales over the remainder of the year provided that the UK's economic outlook does not deteriorate significantly," he said.

(Reporting by Limei Hoang and Fiona Shaikh)