British house prices dropped 0.4 percent in May from the level the previous month, data from a top home-loans provider showed on Friday.

"House prices fell by 0.4 percent in May. This followed April's 0.1-percent decline," said Halifax housing economist Martin Ellis in a statement.

"The mixed pattern of monthly price rises and falls so far this year is consistent with a slowing market and is in line with our view that house prices will be flat during 2010 as a whole," he added.

Halifax, part of state-controlled Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), said the average house price in Britain stood at 167,570 pounds (201,431 euros,245,450 dollars).

IHS Global Insight economist Howard Archer said that the British housing market would struggle to make gains in the remainderof2010.

“The second successive drop in house prices reported by the Halifax further stokes our relative pessimism over the housing market and reinforces our belief that house prices will find it very difficult to make significant gains over the rest of this year," Archer said.