LONDON (Reuters) - House price growth slowed again in the three months to November as prices rose by 8.2 percent compared with the same period last year, their smallest increase since February, mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday.
In November alone, prices rose 0.4 percent, recovering from a 0.4 percent fall in October, Halifax said.
Economists had expected prices to rise by 8.0 percent and 0.3 percent, according to a Reuters poll.
The Bank of England has welcomed signs that Britain's housing market is cooling off after double-digit price gains earlier this year, restrained at least in part by new controls on mortgage lending.
The annual price gains measured by the Halifax index peaked this year at 10.2 percent in July. In October, prices were up 8.8 percent.
Price growth was likely to slow further in 2015 as the prospect of higher interest rates and the scale of recent gains discouraged some buyers, Halifax said.
Halifax economists expect prices nationally increase in a range of 3-5 percent in 2015, although a spokeswoman for the lender said the forecast had been made before the overhaul of taxes on property purchases announced by finance minister George Osborne on Wednesday.
Osborne said the changes, which come ahead of a national election in May, would mean 98 percent of home-buyers who have to pay so-called stamp duty will see their tax bill reduced.
Separate data, published by rival mortgage lender Nationwide last week, showed the annual rate of increase in British house prices in November fell to its lowest level in nearly a year, rising by 8.5 percent.
(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Toby Chopra)