As any proud homeowner or new tenant will know, owning or running a house costs a packet. Before you move in to a rented flat or your own four walls, you tot up the cost of the rent or the mortgage, reckon you can afford it, and promptly sign on the dotted line.

Then the bills start to arrive. Insurance (buildings and contents), electricity, water, gas and council tax, to name a few. Then there's DIY. IKEA may have revolutionised what we can actually afford to do, but the cost of re-kitting out a living room or kitchen is never small change.

Fifty years ago, these household costs ate up less than 10 per cent of our income. Now they account for nearly 20 per cent of our take-home pay. First-time buyers are even more burdened — a recent survey showed that it was not unusual for some FTBs to fork out a third of their pay on mortgage bills alone.

But perhaps the most worrying of all the figures released today by the ONS is that in the space of a year, housing costs have increased by £50 a month. In 2006, they cost about £600 a month, compared to £550 a year earlier. Homeowners had to find an extra £600 a year, just to keep their homes ticking over.

It's not hard to guess where many people found the cash. Personal debt levels have soared in recent years, and it's not just shoppers flexing their plastic in designer stores that has prompted this trend. Many people have turned to credit cards and personal loans to cover the cost of their day-to-day expenses.

News of a fall in house prices may not be greeted with pleasure by existing homeowners, but for first-time buyers it's worth remembering — the cheaper houses are, the less you will pay in mortgage bills, and the more money you will have for DIY.