So, is there any good news for buyers or sellers? The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reported that number of new buyers interested in home purchase and the number of agreed sales both continued to fall in July 2008, but the pace of decline slowed for the third successive month.
Does that indicate an end is in site for the house price crash? Hmmm. There are worrying portents. If the stamp duty 12 month holiday mirrors the previous one, in 1991, the number of transactions and house prices will fall when the duty is reintroduced in September 2009.
In the meantime, Graham Beale, the chief executive of Nationwide Building Society, is predicting that UK house prices could fall by as much as 25 per cent from their peak last autumn. His prognosis suggests there will be a further depreciation of 15 per cent in house price values in 2009.
Bolton King is more sanguine, expecting the bottom of the market to be late summer 2009. News that the US Treasury has bailed out of US mortgage entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is helping to restore confidence in the financial markets.
In the UK, banks have begun to reduce mortgage loan interest rates, which indicate they too are feeling more bullish. Now, if only inflation can be brought under control, the property market, built on the public’s confidence to spend, will begin to recover.
David Bexon, Managing Director of new homes portal SmartNewHomes.com, said: ‘House price growth was not sustainable at the levels recorded this time last year and the five per cent annual decrease in new home prices last month shows that the market has undergone a necessary period of correction.’
Bexon doesn’t add ‘and things can only get better from here on in’, but you half suspect he had to bite his tongue not to.
To find out what the experts are predicting for 2009, and how house prices are performing where you live click through to House Price Predictions 2009.
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