The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported today that United Kingdom house prices have grown by 5.2 percent in the year ended July, down from 5.7 percent in June.

Price increases in England were led by continued strong growth from the East, where prices were up 8.3%, and the South East, where home values climbed 6.7%.

Analysts suggest that the time of double-digit price rises in London is over for now.

According to ONS, “the average house price rose by more than £1,000 a week, leaping from £277,000 to £282,000, a new all-time high and 16.7% above the pre-financial crisis peak in 2007”.

Meanwhile, the Council of Mortgage Lenders’ latest figures revealed house purchase lending was up 9 per cent in July on a year ago.

However, Scotland was the only nation to see prices fall in July, down 1.3% to £196,000.

The ONS data lags a month behind other indexes such as ones from lenders Halifax and Nationwide Building Society.

Writing in the Guardian, Neal Hudson, a housing market analyst for Savills, said that the cost of buying a property, rather than the cost of owning it, is the biggest barrier to people buying their first home.

At the beginning the year, prices were rising at a rate of more than 12%.

“There is very much a ripple effect – the action has moved out from prime central London to the outskirts and those commuter areas where there is better value to be had”.

The data also showed that prices paid by first-time buyers were 4.4 per cent higher on average than in July 2014, while for owner-occupiers, prices increased by 5.5 per cent for the same period. There is plenty of stock coming up for sale with a number of properties being re-launched with price reductions’.

Howard Archer, economist at IHS Global Insight, said: ‘We expect house prices to rise seven per cent in 2015 and then by six per cent in 2016.