House prices almost recovered to their March 2016 peak at the end of last year but transactions were down 3.9%, according to the latest Your Move House Price Index.

The figures for December 2016 show prices grew 0.4%, up 3.1% year-on-year to £297,678. The figure is close to Rightmove’s new average asking price of £300,245 for properties coming on to the market within the last month.

The Your Move figure takes the average house price almost back to the £297,725 peak reached amid the Stamp Duty rush of the previous December.

However, the annual rate of growth was down from 3.5% in November and transaction figures for the final six months of 2016 show just how big an impact the Stamp Duty reforms had as sales fell by 14.7% year-on-year for that period, according to the index.

There was a lot of variation across the country with annual price growth as high as 16.2% in Hull while falls have been as deep as -11.5% in the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham. Overall, London has trailed the other regions of England and Wales, with house price growth of just 0.2%. The east of England saw the biggest annual increase in 2016, up 7.9% to £315,134.