New research suggests that average UK house prices increased slightly last month, which may be encouraging to some of Britain's homeowners.
According to the latest House Price Index from mortgage lender Nationwide, residential property values typically rose by 0.3 per cent in February.
Despite the modest improvement, average UK house prices remain approximately 0.1 per cent lower than at the same time in 2010.
Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, said that the overall picture was still one of a market "treading water".
He commented: "This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Housing market trends are closely linked to wider economic prospects.
"Given that the recovery hit a soft patch at the turn of the year and looks set to remain sluggish in the year ahead, the property market is likely to follow suit, with relatively low transaction levels and prices moving sideways or modestly lower through 2011," he added.
The expert went on to say that demand for homes had "levelled out", supported by historically-low interest rates and stabilisation in Britain's jobs market.
He warned that prolonged economic uncertainty was likely to keep many potential buyers "on the sidelines" for some time to come.
"Nevertheless, there are few signs of a glut of unsold homes building up on the market. Sellers remain reluctant to accept lower prices to secure a sale.
"In fact there are tentative signs that the volume of homes coming onto the market is slowing," said Gardner.
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