LONDON (BLOOMBERG) - UK house prices slipped 0.2 per cent in November from the previous month, according to Halifax, which said a shortage of properties for sale will support values in the short term.

The average cost of a home fell to an average of 204,552 pounds (S$431,605), the mortgage unit of Lloyds Banking Group Plc said in a statement on Tuesday. From a year earlier, prices rose 8.7 per cent, while they advanced 1.4 percent in the quarter through November.

A lack of supply has caused property values to rise faster than wages this year, putting home ownership beyond the reach of many first-time buyers who can't afford down payments. While Halifax expects stretched affordability to constrain the market in 2016, the lender said on Tuesday that the continuing imbalance will bolster price inflation in the coming months.

"The increasingly acute imbalance between supply and demand is causing prices to rise at a robust pace," Martin Ellis, an economist at Halifax, said in a statement. That is "a situation that is unlikely to reverse significantly in the short term."