LONDON (Dow Jones)--The U.K. housing market continued to perform strongly in January despite the global economic slowdown and gloomy news from manufacturing, the Nationwide Building Society said Thursday. The group, which is the fourth-largest mortgage lender in the U.K., said house prices rose 0.2% in January on the month and were up 11.7% on the year. Alex Bannister, Nationwide group economist, said the rise was driven by strong real take-home pay and the lowest mortgage rates in 40 years, which helped offset growing job uncertainty. The Bank of England cut rates by 200 basis points last year and its official rate is now at 4.0%.