UK house prices rose sharply in February, erasing a drop the previous month and suggesting that the property market is very much alive, a key housing market survey showed. HBOS PLC unit Halifax said the average house price in February rose 1.4 pct from January for a 5.5 pct annual increase. The average house price now stands at 173,498 stg compared with 170,833 in January. The monthly rise is well above expectations of a modest 0.1 pct gain. The annual rate, meanwhile, is above predictions of a 4.9 pct increase. In January, there was monthly fall of 0.4 pct for a 5.1 pct annual rise. Howard Archer at Global Insight believes the Halifax data will reinforce the Bank of England's wariness that a trimming of interest rates could excessively stimulate the housing market and risk send housing prices markedly higher. "This not only further rules out an interest rate cut on Thursday, but reduces the prospects of any cut before the third quarter," he added According to Halifax, however, the mixed pattern of monthly price rises and falls is a typical feature of a slower housing market Last week, the equivalent survey from the UK's biggest building society, Nationwide found that house prices fell 0.2 pct in February from the previous month. The drop was the first since June 2005 and took the annual rate of growth to 3.7 pct For the full year, Halifax predicts that UK house prices will rise by 3 pct, broadly in line with the predicted rise in retail price inflation.