London house prices fell for the first time in a year this month, a sign higher interest rates are cooling Britain's property boom, a Rightmove Plc report showed.

The average asking price for a home in the U.K. capital slipped 0.1 percent from July, the first drop since August 2006, to 394,268 pounds ($777,575), Britain's biggest real-estate Web site said in a statement today. The survey measured 150,000 properties listed for sale in the four weeks through Aug. 11.

Bank of England policy makers said Britain's housing market had showed ``signs of softening'' when they kept their benchmark interest rate at a six-year high this month. A slump in global financial markets may erode confidence further among buyers in London, where demand from bankers has helped drive a tripling of U.K. home values in the past decade.

``Record prices and high interest rates have stretched the affordability for everyone,'' Miles Shipside, Rightmove's commercial director, said in an interview. ``Until this stock market turmoil blows over, there is a risk to the housing market, too. Next year, we will see a definite slowdown.''

Throughout the U.K., house prices rose 0.6 percent in the month to 241,474 pounds, compared with a 0.3 percent gain in July, Rightmove said. On the year, prices rose 12.8 percent, up from 10.3 percent in July.

Source :: bloomberg.com