I hade to drop my asking price from 499950K to exchanging and completing at... get ready for the shock!! £3 7 1, 0 0 0.

That was 6 months of hell selling a realy superb property in west Dulwich south London.

The price slashing is bloo dy at the the moment and likely to get a lot worse for ages

N, London,

house crash hurry up and then people on the average wage can buy, if house prices dont come down only rich people will be able to buy, as it is a salary of more than 100k is needed to buy a two bed terrace.s

viv, hastings,

Kirsty and Phil have alot to be blamed for. Kirsty promised to eat her hat if prices ever fell; sorry luv you better get the tomato ketchup out!!!!

john, milton keynes,

Look up what prices were in 1995. Factor in the RPI rate since then and you will get the appropriate price per property at the bottom of this cycle. How quickly this will come after a decade of rises is speculative, but unlikely to be for at least five years from now.

Paul, Coventry,

"I hope the property market does crash and crash big time!! So I can pick up a cheap property for next to nothing!"

What - in the hope it goes BOOM again and you can make a big profit? Another vulture waiting in the wings!

Buy a house to make it a home and live in it!!!

Darren Ward, Manchester, UK

I brought a grd floor flat last year. The upstairs flat came onto the market and I offered £10k less than the asking price (£2k less than what I paid for the downstairs flat). The seller refused offer. I'm not tempted to put in higher offer as know prices down - problem is - sellers dont seem to!

Sonia Crawford, London, England

once bitten, twice shy. people should stop all this talk of getting mortgage markets working again so soon- people simply dont have the cash. house prices have some way to drop still to make them the least bit affordable for the average person.

Simon, London,

House prices will fall for quite a while, as 2009 economy will be worse than 2008 and city bonuses are being cut by 10 to 50%. Banks are very happy with 1/2 the mortgages at double the margin and 25% deposit. Last crash took 4 years peak to through and 4 more years to come back to pre-crisis prices.

Laurence, London,

A N

Yes, and prices in previous cycles took far longer to fall than this time i.e. this time they went up by more faster and longer now the opposite will happen in the same way.

Not sure what your methodllogy is, but the point is there will be lots of forced sellers as the recession startS.

Trevor, South east,

Memories are getting longer - this was a 15 year cycle - i sold at 11 years and watched house prices go up for 4 more years .

I suspect the inital downturn will be fast over 2 years and then flat for 4 years. This is my memory from 91 when i lost 30% on a house i bought in

Mike, Oxford, UK

PLEASE, LISTEN.
Property has already fallen by at least 30% this year (2008).
I know because I have sold my own property in July 2008 and I work as an estate agent in Bristol. There are no buyers. No one can raise the finance. I was lucky to only lose £130,000. Please be careful. Thank God.

Bertram Brown, Bristol, UK

The housing market works in 12 year cycles and people's memory it works in 9 year cycles. We're seeing a correction in the market, which was predicted for 2001, but never came. In the last downturn the average price dropped from £81,041 in 1989 to £72,738 in 1995 , a 10% drop (Halifax).

Chris, Newton le Willows, UK

This is all cause by Greed - you reap what you sow. Its goes back to Thatchers Yuppies and long before that. No , we should go back to pre-1974 when you must save a minimum 12.5% deposit, and get rid of all taxes on savings. This will help people to save up and learn the value of money.

andy smith, st albans, England

My advice to anyone wishing to sell is to hang in there. The market has another 12-18 months fall to go if any of the previous cycles are anything to go by. Then it will take another year, maybe two, for the property maket to begin recovery.

It's happened before, it will happen again.

A N Other, Warwick,

This is great news for the average worker in the UK as the parity between salaries and house prices converge, albeit slightly.
Quite why anyone would purchase a property in the current market with substantial falls still to come is quite frankly beyond me.

Allan, Inverness,

Yes, house prices have fallen but from obscenely high to just ridiculously high.
Those of us who did not buy above our means or are not in the pay of the housing industry will be mightily relieved to see that sense is finally prevailing.

D Keeling, London, UK

Why is everyone pretending we're NOT in a recession?

Oh I forgot, Brown's Government doesn't give us accurate figures, we get the "preferred" ones instead.

Still, good job there's "no more boom & bust" eh Gordon?

Tim, Bristol,

Do Nationwide actually lend to anyone these days? Their stats should come with a health warning, but hey, that would mean a less dramatic headline, eh?

Patrick Bateman, London,

This is not really a price crash. It is a price spike coming back down to earth. House prices didn’t tie in with salaries – simple as that.

The banks should be punished for the irresponsible lending that created this situation.

Luke, London, UK

To Nick in Shrewsbury... the price of a houses has little to do with supply and demand.. The price is determind by how much the banks will lend!!.. If the banks reduce the amount they'll lend people then the price has to come down...

Adrian, Derby, UK

It's not the drop in house prices that's the problem , it was the inflationary boom.

Andrew G, London , uk

Nothing to do with the cost of renting versus buying. If you are sitting in a job that you think you may lose in the next two years, you harldy want to set yourself up with a debt that takes 25-30 years to pay back.
If you think this will all be over buy Xmas, you are living in cloud cuckoo land.

Paul Daines, Woodford, London

Banks may well lend more again in future, but they will not return to the money for all senario of recent for at least 15 years, according the last 45 years of house price history.

Prices have to come down to 3.5x salary or less, that means a 40-50% drop approximately before any stability!!

Tony, Belfast,

What was it a certain young lady called Kirsty said about house prices only going up? I hope she will be picking up the tab when all those first time buyers she advised to "stretch themsves" on her property porn shows over the past couple of years find themselves in negative equity.

John, London, UK

House prices have risen to a level where debt is no longer sustainable. Cost of housing needs to fall to a realistic level where people can comfortably repay a mortgage or rental without over stretching themselves. Reducing interest rates to encourage more recklessness is foolish.

Nan, Reading, UK

The fact is that only those who HAVE to sell are doing right now, as a result they are having to consider low offers. When the mortgage market loosens up all those people who have been waiting on the sidelines will push up demand and prices will rise to their former level - simple supply and demand

Nick, Shrewsbury,

I hope the property market does crash and crash big time!! So I can pick up a cheap property for next to nothing!

Harry, London, UK

Cut and run? What a joke. The prices will fall, yes, but when the dust settles they will rise again. Sit it out and enjoy the ride knowing that you already have a mortgage - something many can't get at the moment sadly but they'll get their chance in due course.

Andy, York, England

... of the Acme bank said " if the MPC is satisfied that its inflation credentials are intact, the possibility of earlier rapid cuts in interest rates increases, which would be good news for LENDERS who want to lumber people with big loans for overpriced property.”

Steve Douglas, Wimborne, Dorset

James, London, I wouldn't be too sure. If there is a recession, there is no telling how far prices will fall, and for how long. Look at Japan, another high density country where prices have still to recover 20 years down the line.

Gareth Jones, Dusseldorf, Germany

Nationwide, and the rest of them, are doing their best to CAUSE a recession.

thalia, london,

Are we suprised?

Who is the dreamer who thinks prices will climb again at 5% pa from next year. I want some of what he is on!

Gwilym Ashworth, Wisborough Green, UK

Once the LIBOR comes down, the house prices will pick up again. Lenders have already shown an appetite to lend again. First time buyers are not anxious to buy at the moment but on a waiting game to buy. It is down to the cost of renting versus buying. Once buying is cheaper people start buying.

Lisa, Chorley,

"I'll bet that by Xmas interest rates will be coming down, rapidly. By next spring the market will have stablised and values will then start to recover."

Dreamer. The market is just beginning its fall, it'll be 18-24 months before recovery.

BTW how much would you be prepared to bet?

James Donevan, Manchester,

Can't see price are going to go back up any time soon. Give it another 6 years before the bottom is reached. Expect to see a fall of 30% in money terms, 50% in real terms by 2014.

col, york, england

dont quite get what you mean James. If the prices are going to go back up again then how would the people who thought their home was their pension be wrong?

carl, barnet, greater london

I love it all those people out there that thought there houses where there pension how wrong could they be. Now is the time to buy everything in sight and just keep hold of it. As we all know in the building game this thing happens every 15 or 20 years and then the prices go back up.

james, London, England

I've been looking to buy for 2+yrs... but not very hard. Laziness is a virtue!

Chris, Derby, UK

"The darkest hour is just before dawn". The market always overshoots in value and subsequently undershoots. I'll bet that by Xmas interest rates will be coming down, rapidly. By next spring the market will have stablised and values will then start to recover, albeit at a steady 5% per annum.

Fergus, Marlborough,

Till early summer i was telling people to wait it out, now i saw get out and buy in 2 years. The market is terrible and it will fall to 30% from its peak last year. Cut and run!!

Jones, london,

This is great news, I am so pleased I waited. Last year the mortgage adviser was offering me a six time salary number, I'd rather not be saddled with so much debt. Patience is a virtue!

barry cooper, hatfield, uk