The Halifax suggested there was a pick-up in sales in recent months

House prices registered their first annual rise since October 2010, rising by 1.3% in January compared with a year earlier, a lender has said.

But the Halifax, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, also said that property values were 0.2% down on December.

The “signs of improvement” in the market, which started in late 2012, continued into the new year, the lender said.

But it added that the outlook for prices was unclear.

Prices in the three months to January were 1.9% higher than in the previous three months, the Halifax said, with the price of the average home valued at £162,932.

The figures, based on the Halifax’s own lending data, suggested that prices had picked up slightly more year-on-year than figures from the Nationwide Building Society.

However, the year-on-year comparison is calculated slightly differently by the two lenders. The Halifax compares the previous three months with the same three months a year earlier to give a smoother comparison, rather than a direct comparison of the equivalent months as calculated by the Nationwide.