House prices climbed to another all-time high in October after dipping slightly the previous month, Nationwide Building Society has reported.

Property values lifted by 0.5% month-on-month to reach £189,333 on average, reversing a 0.1% month-on-month fall seen in September.

But the year-on-year pace of house price growth has been slowing for two months in a row, and Nationwide said that the housing market does appear to have lost momentum.

Values lifted by 9.0% year-on-year in October, drifting down from a 9.4% annual uplift in September. Year-on-year house price growth had consistently been in double digits over the summer as house prices hit a string of new all-time highs.

Typical UK house prices surpassed their 2007 peak in cash terms in May this year and between then and August they had hit a run of new records, before falling back slightly in September and then recovering to a fresh peak this month.

Robert Gardner, Nationwide's chief economist, said: "The number of mortgages approved for house purchase in September was almost 20% below the level prevailing at the start of the year."

Some experts have said this is evidence of the market becoming steadier after a strong burst of housing market activity seen earlier this year.

But other commentators have predicted that with the wider economy still picking up, the weaker patch of mortgage approvals will not last for long.

Stricter mortgage lending rules came into force earlier this year which caused some disruption to the market, but in recent weeks there have been signs of lenders gaining a stronger appetite to do business and slashing the mortgage rates on offer in attempts to meet end-of-year lending targets.

Expectations about the prospect of a rise in the Bank of England base rate from its historic 0.5% low, pushing up borrowing costs, also appear to have been pushed back.