The Land Registry has just released its data on UK house prices in July.

Not surprisingly in the current climate, the Land Registry too has recorded an increase on a monthly basis, in fact the largest increase since 2004 of 1.7%. This has brought the annual rate of decline down to 11.7%.

The Land Registry house price index is widely regarded as the most accurate record of house prices in England and Wales, is showing the annual decline still much faster than the 6.2% recorded by Nationwide last month.

The Land Registry index also showed that there were on average 35,348 property transactions per month between February and May, just over half the 61,743 recorded per month in the same period last year.

As transactions had already plummeted last year, this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt (as far as I'm concerned) that the reason behind the price rises of the moment is not increased transactions because of low interest rates, as Nationwide said yesterday, but the low supplies of saleable stock. (See yesterday's post on the Nationwide index for August).

Nationwide have issued their figures on UK house prices for August, and it contains yet more positive news.

The average house price was 1.6% higher in August than it was in July. This the 4th consecutive monthly increase in UK house prices.

Growth on the less volatile and reputedly more accurate tri-monthly measure accelerated from a growth of 2.7% in the three months ending June, to 3.3% in the three months ending August. And annually the rate of decline has slowed from 6.2% to 2.7%.

Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide's chief economist has put the upward pressure down to the low interest rates, but as I have already commented on Write About Property, I am taking that with a pinch of salt, because, lest we not forget Nationwide has every reason to create positive sentiment on the housing market.

I'll tell you what I told them:

"The reality is that transaction levels are still sucky, no one with a hefty deposit can get an affordable mortgage, and that is out of the people who have sufficient job security to even want a mortgage in the current climate. The only prop underneath prices is the fact that supply is low and this has meant that buyers have temporarily lost the buyers-market power they had in 2008, if that changes prices will fall again."

So there you have it. The advice you can take from that is: get in quick and sell in a sellers' market, before too many people catch on.

This article that I have just read in The Times is about the best example I've seen so far to show the topsy-turvy world of the current UK housing market.

The article is on how now is the time to sell your house because you stand a good chance of getting a good price, because low-stock levels mean little competition from other sellers. But it is also noted in the article that if supply increases massively it will likely drive prices down yet again.

So if everyone follows the advice of those in the article, then everyone will be knackered for getting a good price. The irony could be that, by printing this article The Times have given the game away.

We have been warning on this blog for many months now, that a rapid increase in supply would be detrimental to the future of UK house prices, and how the currently positive news threatened to make that a reality. However, it does seem that there have been a few shrewd people who have timed it just right in their area and got an extremely good price for their house.

If you do decide to follow the advice of the Times interviewees and check out housing supply and get started about selling your house, Zungalow offers a fantastic property advertising package for just £29 per year. Such a low price perhaps takes the risk out of sticking your toe into the house selling water.

Pricewaterhousecoopers have cautioned that UK house prices are likely to see further falls this year, to continue falling next year, and recover very slowly after a largely flat year in 2011.

Steve Denison, PwC Northern chairman said: "Although the estimated average UK house price overvaluation of around 25 per cent in mid-2007 has now been largely eliminated, our analysis suggests that house prices could still have further to fall over the next year.

"Despite some recent reports of rises, we are not out of the woods yet by any means. It is important for buyers to take a long-term rather than a short-term view.

"The pace of recovery in house prices seems likely to be relatively modest until the middle of the next decade, although it could pick up again beyond that as supply shortages re-assert them-selves, credit conditions return to normal and negative memories of the current housing bust fade."

There has been a lot of positivity in the industry press of late, after all the major indices began to show the annual rate of house price decline slowing significantly, and the indices of Halifax and Nationwide began to show consecutive monthly rises and even quarterly growth.

We have been cautioning on this blog that the current upward pressure on prices was fuelled only by supply shortages and that we were highly vulnerable to further falls in the near future. This from the well respected Pricewaterhousecoopers is one of the starkest reports on the future of house prices that we have read for some time.

Sell your house quickly and cheaply with Zungalow

The Little House Company, has unveiled a new paid-for service to allow private property sellers to gain detailed information about a property so that they can reach the best possible valuation.

As people continue to be disappointed with the length of time their property has been on the market for, more and more people are advertising their properties on private property sales sites like Little House and Zungalow, and adding a clause to their estate agents' contract so that they pay no fee if their private efforts sell the property.

Doing this makes their estate agent work harder and also gives them a better chance of selling their property in a timely fashion.

The biggest challenge to a timely house sale is an inaccurate valuation. During high times estate agents have admitted inflating house prices to make more money, and in the current (low times) climate estate agents have been known to inflate valuations to gain instructions.

That said; it is a good idea to conduct your own valuation, even if you have an agent value and then make a judgement based on all the information to hand. This is a good idea whether you plan to sell your house privately or not.

If you do not want to pay for the ability to do your own valuation, here is how you can do it for free:

1. Put your postcode into the Land Registry's index page

   This will tell you how much houses in your area are selling for

2. Use Nationwide's House Price Calculator

   This allows you to enter the value of your house at previous valuations to calculate how much it is worth now.

3. Take the two figures and apply a little common sense to reach your sale price

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has said that UK house prices will not fall by 10% this year, as they had earlier forecast, but we now look set for house prices to end this year slightly higher than last year.

RICS have also said that mortgage approvals, which have been rising for several months will level off at about 55,000 per month -- still historically low and not enough to bring substantial or prolonged upward pressure on prices.

What is putting upward pressure on prices in the current climate, RICS say is the fact that new instructions are at an all time low, having fallen for 26 consecutive months. RICS said that this, along with continually rising unemployment and economic contraction to make the current minor upturn very fragile indeed.

In fact the underlying sentiment of the RICS housing market sentiment was as the headline said: outlook improving but housing market not out of woods yet. In other words, yes it's great that prices are rising now but with the economic outlook still so negative there is likely to be a second dip.

Commenting, RICS senior economist Brigid O’Leary said:

"There has been a clear change in the housing market over the past few months and, as a result, it is unlikely that we will now see the kind of house price falls widely predicted at the start of the year. Instead, the return of buyer demand and the limited availability of housing on the market could be enough to support prices so it wouldn’t be surprising to actually see prices increase further from here in the short term. That would be consistent with more positive expectations that have been reported in recent RICS Housing Market Surveys.

"However, the outlook for 2010 is fairly uncertain and there is a real risk that prices may slip back again. Affordability is still stretched and mortgage finance, while improving, is fairly hard to come by. The positive news we have seen has been a recovery from record lows and there are still many uncertainties in the economy. In particular, we are concerned about the mortgage finance environment and the impact of further increases in unemployment on house prices."