New home registrations in the last three months of 2012 showed signs of a recovery despite annual figures dropping 9%.
The latest numbers from theNational House-Building Council showed that from October to December registration rose 17%.
During this final period private homes starts were up 14% and public housing showed its biggest rebound for several years by recordinga 25% uplift.
The gains were seen mainly in London and the south of the country although Yorkshire and Humber region also delivered growth.
But across the year, big falls in social housing starts contributed to the annual decline in new home registrations to 104,510.
Within the total, public sector housing registrations dropped from 36,680 in 2011, to 26,390 in 2012, while private house building in the UK was stable at 78,120 new homes registered last year, compared to 78,250 in 2011.
NHBC commercial director Richard Tamayo said: “In summary 2012 was a challenging year for the house building industry overall but ended on an encouraging note with Q4 figures 17% up on the same period for 2011.
“With Government-backed schemes such as NewBuy and Funding for Lending helping to increase mortgage availability, there are reasons to believe that 2013 may see the industry able to build on some of the positive momentum we saw towards the end of 2012, which does seem to be carrying over into January.
“Nonetheless, with house building volumes so far below the numbers desperately needed in the UK, this is clearly an issue that needs to remain at the heart of Government policy.”
Mike Leonard, CEO of the Modern Masonry Alliance said: ”These figures bear out my belief that we will see year on year growth in new housing in 2013 of up to 10%, which had a very poor last quarter.
“This growth will be made by the major house builders, building and selling more than last year and a bounce in the social housing market which crashed in 2012 following the 63% cut in Capital Grant.
“This underlines the resilience of the housing market and should send a clear message to the Government that further and substantial investment in this sector is vital if the Government is to steer the economy away from a disastrous period of Triple Dip Recession and back to the Jobs and growth we need to cement a long tern recovery.”
