House price rise hopes boosted as recession ends

Most Britons believe that house prices will rise this year as the country awaits official confirmation that the worst peacetime recession is finally over. A survey by Rightmove found that 53 per cent of those in the UK believe house prices will rise over the next 12 months, compared with just 10 per cent at the beginning of last year. The sharp upswing in confidence about one of the worst affected sectors during the recession comes prior to the publication of figures tomorrow that are expected to show the economy started growing again in the last quarter of 2009. Economists are predicting that the Office for National Statistics will say that gross domestic product increased by 0.4 per cent, which would mark the official end of the recession following six quarters of contraction.