UK house price growth cools again in January - Halifax

LONDON (Reuters) - British annual house price growth resumed its slowing trend in January after a short-lived pickup in December, mortgage lender Halifax said on Thursday.

House prices rose 0.8 percent year-on-year in the three months to January, after a 1.3 percent increase in the three months to December. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a 1.5 percent.

In January alone, house prices fell 2.9 percent, a sharper drop than anyone forecast in the poll and more than reversing a 2.5 percent increase in December.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce; editing by Kate Holton)