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mpc: 16 In October, for the first month in three years, both the Halifax and Nationwide house price indices had fallen. House price inflation appeared to have been slowing in all regions of the country in the third quarter. Most indicators of housing market activity and prices at different stages of the house- buying process confirmed the picture of a slowing market. For example, the number of mortgage approvals in September had been at the lowest level since August 2000 and a Hometrack measure of market tightness comparing the selling and asking prices of houses had been falling steadily since April. As usual, the Committee had also seen a preview of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) survey for October, which had pointed to a continued balance of respondents reporting house price falls and a further decline in the ratio of average property sales to the average stock of unsold properties per surveyor.