House prices down 8.1 percent

LONDON (Reuters) - House prices in England and Wales fell by 1.1 percent in November to take them 8.1 percent lower on a year ago, property consultancy Hometrack said in its monthly survey on Monday.

The pace of monthly decline eased slightly from October's 1.3 percent drop, but the average house price is down to 161,400 pounds, the same as in January 2006.

British house prices tripled in the 10 years running up to their peak in the middle of last year, but have since fallen by as much as 15 percent in other surveys as the global financial crisis has caused the supply of mortgages to dry up.

"All the indicators from the latest survey point to a continued fall in property prices in the short term," said Richard Donnell, director of research at Hometrack.

"A weak economic outlook and limited availability of mortgages are set to keep prices under downward pressure in 2009."

Donnell added that transaction volumes might be bottoming out, with a hard core of buyers and sellers who have to move left in the market.

Homes took an average of 11.8 weeks to sell, compared to 11.9 weeks in October, and sellers typically achieved 88.9 percent of their asking price compared to 89.2 percent a month before.

London -- where prices are highest -- has seen the biggest percentage fall over the past year, at 9.5 percent.

(Reporting by David Milliken)