The pain of the property market slowdown of 2008 will not be shared equally. The rich, in homes costing £2 million or more, may barely notice the downturn and could become richer, while the relatively poor could become even poorer.

Most economists and estate agents are forecasting that homes worth £350,000 or less in all areas will be those hardest hit in the slowdown.

The prospective purchasers of lower-priced homes are those most likely to be squeezed by the new, less generous, lending policies of banks that will be attempting to repair their balance sheets after the credit crunch. The days of easy money are over and anyone, such as a first-time buyer seeking a mortgage that is five or six times their income, with only a little money saved for a deposit, will receive a chilly reception.

However, owners of a house in the country, or a handsome period home anywhere close to a good school, a waterfront or good transport, may be hardly troubled at all by the correction that is already happening in the housing market.

The attractions of features such as space, a garden, and proximity to schools, shopping and transport will be even more accentuated than usual in the move towards quality in the property market. The cutback in City bonuses will mean that demand could falter for homes priced between

£1 million and £2 million in Central London and the suburbs, according to Max Ziff, of the estate agent Humberts. But this setback may be only temporary.

There could also be a reassessment of areas where values have gone up because they are near a smart area. Yolande Barnes, an economist at Savills, calls it “the high-tide effect”: the neighbourhoods that were the last to boom are the first to fall.

Richard Donnell, of Hometrack, the housing data group, said: “When the market is hot, what is considered Clapham Old Town gets stretched. But as the market cools, prices in these border areas go back to being Clapham North or Stockwell prices. In some secondary areas that are calling themselves places they really are not, prices have been rising at a rate that is not sustainable.”

Meanwhile, it could be a good year for downsizers who are selling a large family home that is likely to retain its value and moving to a more modest property of the type that is more vulnerable to the effect of the downturn.

The areas seen as those most likely to be left unscathed by the downturn are the South West, the Lake District, Cheshire, Wales, Scotland and all of the desirable areas of London.

Lucian Cook, from Savills, said: “The corridor from Fulham to Guildford, from West London out to Surrey, will be a safe haven. But East London and the areas around Heathrow will suffer more of an impact.”

Speculators who have invested in new developments in city centres nationwide could also suffer in the more bracing climate. Small-time buy-to-let investors who have overextended themselves to get into the property game are suffering from rising interest rates and a glut of new flats that are for sale.

In a survey of estate agents and surveyors nationwide, which was conducted by The Times, the message of a downturn in the property market was strong.

Richard Powell, from Ryder & Dutton, an estate agent in Oldham, Lancashire, said: “We will have a real problem with flats. There are partially-built apartments round Oldham where developers are going to struggle to sell at the prices they had hoped to achieve — especially when a new one-bedroom flat is more expensive than a three-bedroom terrace house, which you can still buy in the area for £100,000.”

Ed Stansfield, of Capital Economics, the forecasting group, said that the new-build flat sector would suffer because developers were under more pressure to sell than the average vendor of a property.

Paul McSkimmings, of Edward Watson Associates in Newcastle upon Tyne, said that four-bed detached houses that were around the £250,000 stamp duty level may drop in value, but the higher end of the market would not. Mr McSkimmings added that the Northern Rock crisis had knocked confidence in the market.

“Northern Rock’s headquarters is only a couple of miles from here, and people think if this can happen to a company like them, who’s next? That had a big impact,” he said.