Even though the lender saw January house prices fall for the third time in as many months, they only dropped by 0.1 per cent.
This compares favourably with reductions in excess of 0.4 per cent before Christmas.
Indeed despite all of the recent market corrections, house prices are still sitting at a level 4.2 per cent higher than a year ago.
“The weakening trend in house prices during the last three months is consistent with the loosening in housing market conditions that has become increasingly evident in the data," said Martin Gahbauer, Nationwide's senior economist.
"Key indicators such as mortgage approvals and the sales-to-stock ratio have now fallen close to or even below the troughs reached in late 2004, a period that was followed by a year of very subdued price growth."
Gahbauer said that the latest data undoubtedly signalled that the markets were continuing to cool, but there were some tentative signs that demand was 'bottoming out.'
He said: "As the year progresses, a key factor to watch will be how much pent-up demand returns to explore the market, and how much of this is translated into actual housing transactions."
The lender believes that buy-to-let demand will also weaken over the course of the year, but that the sector's long-term fundamentals are not necessarily as poor as has been recently speculated.
“The most commonly expressed concern about buy-to-let is that the rental yield on property has in many cases fallen below the cost of finance," continued Gahbauer.
"Clearly, if the net rental income on property is not sufficient to cover the cost of a mortgage, investors must depend on house price increases to drive returns. This reliance on capital gains highlights the importance of house price expectations when examining the buy-to-let sector.
"The concern shared by many is that as we enter a more subdued year for the housing market, investors could revise down their expectations for future house prices and become less willing to invest in property at low rental yields.
“While such concerns are certainly relevant, they are much more of a factor for those with a short investment horizon rather than for those in it for the long-term."
