The "age of massive rises of house prices may be nearing an end", according to a senior figure at the government's spending watchdog.

David Miles, a senior economist at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said Britons buying property in coming years are unlikely to see the same vast uplift in house prices that past generations have enjoyed.

Slowing population growth, rising interest rates and an increase in working from home will likely mean that property prices will rise more slowly, according to Mr Miles.

Mr Miles said in a speech: “If anything, this unusual age of massive rises of house prices may be nearing an end.

“Those forces driving them up are going to be much weaker, I suspect, in the next 40 years than they have been in the past 40 years."

Mr Miles is one of three members of the top committee at the OBR, which scrutinises public finances.

Real house prices have risen more than three and a half times since the 1970s, vastly outpacing income growth.

Prices grew particularly rapidly in the decade after the financial crisis as low interest rates fuelled borrowing.

The average home cost £288,000 in February according to the Office for National Statistics, an increase of around 91pc since 2005.

House prices have risen faster in the UK than in many other similar countries because house building has failed to keep pace with population growth, Mr Miles said.

However, with interest rates now rising and birth rates declining, upward pressure on prices is likely to ease in the coming years.

Mr Miles has also previously published research showing that land and house prices decline after a rise in working from home, as people have greater choice over where to live.

His comments came as new figures from the ONS showed that the number of families in the UK has increased by just over a million in the decade to 2022.

Separately, net migration has surged since Brexit and is expected to break new records at well over half a million people in a year when new figures are out next week.

The Conservative government abandoned their target of building 300,000 homes a year in December last year after dozens of backbenchers threatened rebellion.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday made building more homes a central tenet of Labour’s election programme.

Sir Keir vowed to “back the builders not the blockers” by allowing homes to be built on green belt land and reinstating housing targets.

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