More than £13,000 was wiped off the price of the average home in London in a single month, according to official figures.

The 3.75 per cent fall - the biggest since government records began six years ago - saw prices drop from £351,315 in January to £338,109 in February.

The figures, from the Department for Communities and Local Government, came after surveyors warned that the decline in the value of homes was now more widespread than in the early Nineties. Research from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors showed house prices falling at the fastest rate for 30 years.

But a DCLG spokesman said: "It's important to recognise we are dealing with a different situation in the market from what was experienced in the early Nineties. Today the issue affecting the market is credit supply, then it was high unemployment and high interest rates. The fundamentals of the economy are sound with high employment levels and historically low interest rates."

Across the UK, average house prices fell by 1.6 per cent to £217,737, the lowest level since June last year and down from £221,278 in January. The drop put annual property price growth in London at 9.5 per cent, with the rate falling from eight per cent to 6.7 per cent nationwide.

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