British house prices experienced their first monthly fall since the start of 2013 last month, figures from mortgage lender Halifax showed on Wednesday.
Halifax, part of Lloyds Banking Group, said that house prices in December fell by 0.6 percent after rising by 0.9 percent in November, itself a smaller increase than initially estimated.
(Read more: UK house prices soar: Biggest jump in 4 years)
None of the economists polled by Reuters before the data had expected a fall in December.
House prices in the three months to December were 7.5 percent higher than a year earlier, a slightly smaller rise than the month before.
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