British homeowners were handed some more good news this morning when the latest housing market survey from Rightmove, the property website, suggested that house prices have now risen for two months in a row.

In an echo of recent bullish surveys by mortgage lenders such as the Halifax, Rightmove said house prices rose by 0.8 per cent in the four weeks to November 12 - building on a 0.5 per cent rise during the previous month.

The website, which has previously urged property owners to take a "common-sense" approach to their asking prices, said pricing was now at a "sustainable" level, with new buyers coming into the market without having to be prompted by heavy discounts.

"This is not a return to a boom market, but the arrival of the long-awaited soft landing. It is also a reflection of the unseasonably high sales reported by estate agents during the summer months working through to completion," Rightmove said.

Last month's rise, hailed by the website as a "turnaround", takes the annual rate of house price inflation to 4 per cent, sharply up on last month's 1.5 per cent.

Property values increased by an average of £1,507 in the four weeks to November 12, meaning the average home now costs £197,855, Rightmove said.

Today's Rightmove figures were followed later this morning by further positive indications about house prices from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott.

The ODPM survey, which lags behind other monthly surveys but is seen as a serious indicator of the market, showed that price inflation rose by 3.3 per cent in September, from 2.8 per cent the previous month.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at Global Insight, said the two surveys were "a further indication that recently improved housing market activity is providing limited renewed stimulus to house prices".

But Mr Archer added: "Even so, house prices seem unlikely to move markedly higher over the coming months. Still stretched affordability ratios should go a long way towards containing the upside for house prices, while estate agents continue to indicate that over-priced houses are still not selling.

"If house prices start to accelerate markedly, we believe buyer interest will diminish. Indeed, with interest rates likely to stay on hold in the immediate future at least, and average earnings growth remaining relatively muted, affordability ratios will start to deteriorate anew if house prices start to move significantly back up."

While Rightmove's survey appears to be concrete good news for homeowners, it is also mildly reassuring for first-time buyers, in that suggests the market is moving forward slowly and not preparing for any big price increases in the short to medium term.

And while the survey follows a number of positive other indications of steadying prices, it stands in contrast to the view of Nationwide, Britain's biggest building society, which said last week it expected prices to dip in the first half of next year and then settle back to zero growth.

Miles Shipside, the commercial director of Rightmove, said: "The property market's key foundation has returned. Confidence is back, leaving pessimists out in the cold. The combination of sustainable prices and a fall in interest rates has raised buyers' and sellers' confidence to strike a deal."

Although Mr Shipside said there were still some areas of the country where sellers were trying to secure too-high prices for their properties and failing to benefit from the increased confidence, Rightmove said prices rose in eight out of 10 British regions, most notably in Greater London.

Prices in Greater London rose by 3.5 per cent during the four-week period, while prices in the south-east as a whole dropped by 0.7 per cent.