Nationwide Profit Rockets In Housing Surge

High street (BSE: HIGHSTREE.BO - news) lender Nationwide has seen underlying profit more than double in the three months to the end of June.

First (Other OTC: FSTC - news) quarter profit for the building society reached £263m, up 117% on the same period last year.

Statutory profit was up 141%, to £253m in the quarter.

The mutual said its share of current accounts - against the four big high street banks - rose slightly to 6.4% from 6.2%.

And while deposits increased by £1.5bn to £132bn, gross mortgage lending fell to 9%, to £5.8bn from £6.4bn.

The results come as Bovis Homes (LSE: BVS.L - news) said its pre-tax profit for the first six months of the year were up 166%, to £49.4m, on the back of a record number of completions.

The company has focused its construction areas in the south of England in recent years and said the average sale price was around £212,500.

Bovis said it now expects to see a significant increase in 2014 full-year profit, provided stability remained in the market.

Meanwhile the brakes are increasingly being applied to sellers' asking prices, according to a property website.

Rightmove (LSE: RMV.L - news) said the fear of increasing loan rates and the new mortgage affordability tests imposed on lenders in late April have squeezed expectations.

It said prices this month have fallen 2.9% month-on-month to an average of £262,401 across England and Wales.

It was the biggest August dip in more than a decade of recording asking price results.

Rightmove director Miles Shipside said: "New seller asking prices are good lead indicators of the current mood of the market.

"And those who have put their property up for sale in the last month are obviously aware that potential buyers are thinner on the ground at this time of year and need to be tempted to act by cheaper prices."

London was the biggest faller, seeing asking prices drop 5.9% to an average of £552,783 compared to July.

The capital's asking prices were still 10.3% higher than they were in the same period last year, it said.

Asking prices in the North saw the only increase month-on-month, up 0.5% to an average of £149,354.

In Wales, prices eased 2% month-on-month, to a typical value of £173,176.