Average UK house prices predicted to rise by a quarter in next five years

Latest estimates show house prices up 1.6% over the last three months

By 2018, house prices will grow by 25 per cent, with even larger growth in the South East and East of more than 30 per cent, according to predictions from Savills.

“We expect prices to rise by 17 per cent in the next three years alone,” says Lucian Cook, Savills head of UK residential research, who also played down fears of another housing bubble.

“We see no evidence of an imminent housing bubble and think it an unlikely prospect," he said. "For a bubble to occur we would need to see five year price rises of 35 per cent to 40 per cent and/or mortgage interest rates of around 7 per cent, which seems improbable.

Halifax also released its latest house price figures today, showing that over the last three months prices were 1.6 per cent higher than in the previous three. House prices increased by 0.7 per cent in October, the ninth consecutive monthly increase.

Nicholas Ayre, managing director of homebuying agency Home Fusion, said: 'While October figures are still moving ahead and are higher than the previous three months, what we are also seeing is a growth slowdown on a quarterly basis.

"There may be a ‘press-commentary-effect’ here, where people are taking note of what is being said in the press about a housing bubble and then thinking twice before jumping in. That said, we are also entering a quieter phase for the market, with December traditionally a subdued month for housing transactions. So sellers may well be thinking ‘let’s get on with things’ before the December period and get our house sold."

Adam Day, director of online estate agent Hatched.co.uk said he believed that house prices could rise by as up to 7 per cent across England and Wales next year with double digit increases in London and the South East.

"Until the government gets to grips with speeding up planning permission, encouraging building on Brownfield sites, as well as some Greenfield sites and forcing builders to build houses and not flats, then the market will only go one way and that is up," he said.