According to the property website, average prices have now been rising for four consecutive months, gaining 2.1% in the last four weeks.

It reports that all regions have seen month-on-month increases in property values except London, where prices have fallen by 0.5% in the last month, having outpaced the rest of the UK for the last year.

Miles Shipside, director and housing market analyst at Rightmove said:

“Transaction volumes may be historically low but, paradoxically, new seller asking prices are within a grand and a half of a new record high. With mass-market buyers still sitting on the sidelines, the size of the active market is a lot smaller, making it easier for an upswing in activity to feed through to an upturn in prices.” 

Property is selling more quickly this month than in April last year, suggesting that demand for property is outstripping supply.

The average time a property is For Sale on the market has fallen from 83 days last April to 73 days this year.

The gap between asking prices and selling price (recorded at the Land Registry) has also reduced this year, falling from 3.39% in December 2012 to 2.95% now.

“This indicates that sellers are negotiating less and buyers are willing or able to pay more” says Shipside. “While the discount from the asking price on an individual property is very much a product of how realistic that price was, it is a sign of a recovering market if they are paying closer to what sellers ask.”

Commenting on the drop in asking prices in London, Shipside said:

“The traditional spring-time boost to prices has failed to materialise in April, though with a track record of heady rises over the last 12 months it is perhaps not surprising that London is pausing for breath.

“[But] with London property prices likely to bounce back , May looks like an odds-on bet to deliver a new asking price record. This should not be confused with an overall market recovery, as while spring may be here the ongoing chill of the recession is still in the air.”

The unexpected drop in London asking prices has caused the annual rate of house price inflation in the capital to fall from 9% to 6.2% this month, but that still leaves the region as by far the best performing, with the next-strongest annual growth seen in the South East, where prices are 1.1% higher than April 2012.