According to a recently released study by the property website, Rightmove, the average asking prices for UK homes showed the strongest annual price rise for over a year during the period from mid-April to early May. The report has caused Rightmove to revise its original estimates for the price increases for 2006, up from about 5 per cent to 8 per cent as a shortage of attractive properties being available for sale is helping to push up general house prices across the UK.

The figures showed that asking prices rose for the fifth consecutive month as the supply of homes has again not kept pace with the current levels of demand. This has taken the average asking price for a UK residential property to