British house price growth fell back in October to its weakest levels in almost two years in further signs that the market is cooling.
Property values in the three months to October were 0.8 per cent higher than in the previous three months, which is the slowest quarterly growth seen since December 2012, Halifax said.
This took the average UK house price to £186,135. Halifax said that quarterly changes in house prices tend to be seen as the clearest indicator of underlying trends in the housing market.
House prices dipped by 0.4 per cent in October compared with the previous month, marking the fifth monthly decline in the past year.
Values are 8.8 per cent higher than they were a year ago, although the annual rate of house price growth has been slowing since the middle of the summer after hitting a peak of 10.2 per cent in July.
Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis said weakening demand from potential home-buyers is bringing the demand for properties and the supply of houses for sale into better balance. This, in turn, is having a calming effect on house prices.
"The economy is, however, continuing to grow at a healthy pace and employment is still rising," he said.
"These factors should support housing demand over the coming months."
Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist for IHS Global Insight, said: "With housing market activity clearly off its early-2014 highs, we suspect house prices will generally rise at a more sedate rate over the coming months.
"Specifically, we expect house prices to rise by around 0.5 per cent over the final two months of 2014. We see house prices rising by around 5 per cent in 2015."
A string of reports have pointed to the market slowing down after strong activity earlier this year.
Experts have suggested a variety of factors behind this, including house hunters being put off by the prices some sellers are asking, stricter mortgage lending rules which came into force in April making it tougher for some people to get a home loan, and expectations that the Bank of England base rate will start lifting off its 0.5 per cent low at some point next year, pushing up the cost of borrowing.
The number of mortgage approvals made to home buyers fell to a 14-month low in September, according to recent figures from the Bank of England.