[LONDON] British house prices rose at their fastest annual pace in more than nine years last month, and prices in London have shown their biggest jump in a generation, figures from mortgage lender Nationwide showed yesterday.

House prices rose by 1.0 per cent on the month in June after a 0.7 per cent rise in May, taking the annual rate of increase to 11.8 per cent - the biggest rise since January 2005.

Both the monthly and the annual growth rates exceeded all forecasts in a Reuters poll, in which economists had predicted that the rate of growth would stabilise.