According to recent figures released by the property information group Hometrack the average house price has fallen for the eighth consecutive months, with buyers still holding back on taking the plunge.
Last month saw a 0.6% drop in house prices according to the firm’s figures, and this was followed by a 0.5% fall in May. The annual rate of growth has fallen from 0.9% to -1.9%, which is the lowest since November 2005.
Officials from the company also said that the time that it was taking to sell the average property had gone up over the past year, and it was now taking an average time of nearly ten weeks to sell a property, which is three weeks more than this time last year.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders has also recently changed its house price forecast for the year, and whilst late last year it predicted a 1% rise for house prices over the course of this year it has now revealed that it is expecting a 7% fall in house prices over 2008.
The CML has also predicted that there could be a 35% drop in property sales over the course of this year, further reflecting the ongoing slump in both the housing and the mortgage loan markets.
