December market data from the Land Registry showed that the North West recorded the biggest decline, the South West had the second highest monthly price drop of 0.9% followed by the West and East Midlands with decreases of 0.7% and 0.5% respectively.

The housing market in the North West is still experiencing annual growth but at a much slower rate than the rest of the country, at 1.5% bringing the average property price in the region to £110,548.

The government’s statistics revealed that London led the way with both annual and monthly house price increases, registering rises of 16.3% compared to December 2013 and 1.8% month-on-month.

The average London home now stands at £465,000.

But Guy Meacock of buying agency Prime Purchase said providing an average London monthly growth rate was ‘unhelpful’ because within London, the boroughs behave in different ways.

“Kensington and Chelsea saw a monthly drop of 0.6%, for example, while Newham and Hillingdon saw rises of 1.6 and 1.5% respectively. An average is therefore quite unhelpful. It is always worth remembering that the Land Registry doesn’t include transactions bought in trust names or corporate entities as many of these are not recorded,” he said.

Overall annual growth in December was 7% which reflected statistics released today by Nationwide which reported a 7.2% annual rise in UK house prices in December and a slight drop to 6.8% in January.