House prices fall for ninth month running

LONDON (Reuters) - House prices in England and Wales fell for a ninth month running in June, leaving them 3.2 percent lower than a year ago, a survey by property research company Hometrack showed on Monday.

The survey also revealed a rise in the length of time a property spends on the market and a smaller proportion of the asking price being achieved.

Property prices were down by one percent over the month and have fallen 2.5 percent over the first half of the year.

Richard Donnell, Hometrack's director of research, said new buyer registrations were down by 5.7 percent in June and have fallen by more than 50 percent since the credit squeeze began last August.

"The net result is a sizeable drop in transaction volumes which look set to reach levels not seen since the 1970s," he said.

"In the short term it seems inevitable that prices will continue to post modest falls until such time as confidence improves."

The average time taken to sell a property rose to 10.3 weeks. That compares with six weeks in June last year.

The proportion of the asking price achieved slipped to 91.6 percent, the lowest level since the survey began in 2001, from 92.3 percent in May.

The only factor supporting prices was a slowing in the amount of property coming onto the market. The supply of homes on estate agents' books grew by 1.4 percent in June compared with an average monthly increase of 5 percent over the last four months.

(Reporting by Christina Fincher; editing by Stephen Nisbet)