Proactive Investors - House prices rose 0.3% in July compared to the previous month, the third month in a row and with an annual rate of 2.1% which was the largest increase since late 2022.
The seasonally adjusted data from Nationwide was higher than the 0.1% that economists expected and follows a 0.2% gain in June.
The average house price in July was £266,334, up from £266,064 in June, though prices are still around 2.8% below the all-time highs recorded in the summer of 2022.
With the figures coming ahead of the Bank of England meeting later on Thursday, Nationwide chief economist Robert Gardner said housing market activity "has been holding relatively steady in recent months".
Recent BoE data showed the number of mortgages approved for house purchase was around 60,000 per month.
"While this is still circa 10% below the level prevailing before the pandemic struck, it is still a respectable pace given the higher interest rate environment," said Gardner,
He noted that the BoE base rate is expected to be lowered modestly this year and in the years ahead, which would help to bring down borrowing costs.
"However, the impact is likely to be fairly modest as the swap rates which underpin fixed-rate mortgage pricing already embody expectations that interest rates will decline in the years ahead," he said.
Elliott Jordan-Doak at Pantheon Macroeconomics noted that mortgage interest rates fell in June for the first time since January, to 5.16% from 5.19% for the average rate on a 2-year fixed-rate mortgage with a 75% LTV ratio.
He said the total rise in prices since January were now 1.7%, with the Nationwide index indicating that prices have only fallen in two of the seven months so far this year.
His research of the underlying trends from the three major indices – Nationwide, Halifax and the official ONS measure – showed 1.2% month-to-month annualised house price inflation in June, "but today’s reading should help lift that figure for July".
"Given that official house prices typically lag the unofficial series such as the Nationwide index, further gains could follow when the ONS releases house price data for June. What’s more, some forward-looking indicators in June were already pointing to house prices rising further from here," he said.