UK house prices have their Wile E Coyote moment

To virtually nobody's surprise, UK house prices have shot off the edge of the precipice and are plummeting headfirst to the bottom of the canyon.

Those who remember the Road Runner cartoon will know there was always a moment, just after Wile E. Coyote was tricked for the umpteenth time into running off the edge of a tall cliff, when he appeared to be momentarily suspended in mid-air before plummeting towards the ground.

Well, UK house prices have just had their Wile E. Coyote moment. They rose, they stalled, and now they are unquestionably in freefall. According to the Nationwide, prices fell 2.5% in May, significantly more than they did in April (0.9%) and the most since Nationwide's records began back in 1991. The average house price in the UK, on Nationwide's numbers, is now £173,583. That's 4.4% - or £8000 less than this time last year. Worse, prices have now been falling for seven months in a row, the longest stretch of its kind since 1992.

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.