House prices in parts of Lancashire are on the rise at the start of 2009 – with Preston leading the way.
New figures released by the Land Registry, the official government register of all property sales, has revealed the average cost of a home in Lancashire is £154,922, an increase of 1.3% in three months up to December.
In Preston, prices were up 6.1% in the same period, Wyre was up 2.1% but South Ribble was down 7.5% and Chorley dropped by 5.8%.
Estate agents across the county said the prices are signs of the green shoots of recovery for the area's property market but said that banks needed to start offering better mortgages to bring more activity to the market.
Georgina Cox, of estate agents Moving Works, said: "We have just had the busiest end of the year that we have had in a long time, and as the banks start to release money through mortgages that should equate into sales.
"I do not think we are going to see anything dramatic like a couple of years ago – it will probably not be until the third quarter of this year that things get back."
Robert Godlonton, from the Preston branch of Jones Cameron estate agents, said things could pick up by the spring, but admitted people will be "a lot more cautious" over the next few months.
Preston increases were more driven by investor landlords looking to snap up cut price terraced properties to rent out in the city, he said.
He said: "There is property out there, the only problem is the finance and the key to that lies with the banks offering mortgages at reduced rates to get first-time buyers back onto the market."
But statistics released by Halifax, the UK's biggest mortgage lender, on Friday showed prices nationally fell 16.2% in 2008, the biggest fall in a calendar year on record.
Garside Waddingham director John Waddingham said sales at the end of 2008 had been "dreadful" and warned that only the scrapping of Home Information Packs (HIPs) would have a real impact on sales.
The packs, which include an energy performance certificate for a property, cost buyers an average of £300.
Mr Waddingham said: "HIPs are a millstone around the industry's neck.
"If the government was to scrap them it would have a bigger impact on the economy than a 2.5% cut in VAT, which effects virtually no-one."
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