House price inflation continued to flat-line in April but there remained no evidence of a market crash, new figures indicated.

The latest House Price Watch by property firm Assetz recorded annual growth at 1.7% last month, down from 3.6% in March.

Despite a slump since the beginning of the year, house prices are still showing annual increases - suggesting that the market is levelling out rather than heading towards a bust.

And in further good news for homeowners, the UK's largest lender today announced it is to drop rates for existing customers coming to the end of their current deals.

The typical house in the UK is now priced at £211,014, down by £915 on the previous month, the Assetz survey found.

In the last six months, prices have fallen 1.9% (£4,015) from a high of £215,089.

But annually, the typical homeowner would have seen the price of their home increase by £2,279 since April 2007.

The figures are compiled by averaging the five major UK house price indices.

Stuart Law, chief executive of Assetz, said the figures indicate that doomsayers' predictions of a market crash were misplaced.

He said: "While house prices fell by 0.6% in April, prices remain up on the previous year and I am yet to see any firm evidence of a housing market crash.

"We saw a steep increase in house prices leading up to a peak in October last year.

"This was widely regarded as an unsustainable level of growth and we are currently embedded in a period of stabilisation, throughout which house prices in this country have remained extremely robust in spite of the difficulties in the mortgage market - down only 1.9% in April since the highest recorded average, taken in October last year - a far cry from the property crash that many commentators are misleadingly quoting."

His comments came as Halifax announced that it is to reduce its mortgage rates on three and five-year fixed and tracker deals by between 0.10 and 0.20 percentage points

A spokeswoman for the lender said: "This move ensures that, as always, there is a competitively priced mortgage range available for our customers coming to the end of their mortgage."

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