A leading group of property workers has called on the Government to kick start the housing market, as new figures showed that people selling their houses are being forced to cut almost 10 per cent off the asking price to secure a sale.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), said that the Government’s attempts to drag the housing market out of the doldrums have been “limited”, and has made a number of suggestions to kick start activity.

The Government is tomorrow expected to announce a series of new measures to help struggling homeowners and first-time buyers.

Proposals are forecast to include improved support for people facing repossession and shared equity schemes for those trying to get on the property ladder.

Figures out this morning from property consultants Hometrack say sellers achieved only 90.7 per cent of the asking price in August, the lowest since it started charting prices in 2001. In July, the figure was 90.9 per cent.

The index fell for the 11th month in a row in August raising the annual decline from 4.4 per cent to 5.3 per cent.

Hometrack says there has been some evidence of buyers coming in as prices drop.

The month-to-month price fall of 0.9 per cent was slightly smaller than the previous two months’ figures, the number of viewings to achieve a sale fell for the first time in almost a year, but properties were still taking more than 11 weeks to sell, almost twice the time taken a year ago.

RICS’ proposals include the Government issuing new mortgage-backed securities, in which home loans are parceled up and sold onto other investors, to allow the original lender to issue more mortgages, which would be guaranteed by the Bank of England until the market improves.

Some have said that the widespread use of these type of securities helped to cause the current credit crisis.

RICS also believes that the government should set up tax free saving schemes to allow people to save for a deposit on their first property, introduce a short-term stamp duty holiday, and offer mortgage rescue schemes to those facing repossession,allowing the current occupiers to continue to live there.

Rumours that the Government was considering a stamp duty holiday may have caused some of the slow down in completions over the past month.

Gillian Charlesworth, RICS Director of External Affairs, said: “While we wait for the Government to act on all the necessary fronts, many home owners are trapped in a market offering little or no mobility without any prospect of good cheer in the autumn.”

A spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: “We are looking at a wide range of options to further support the housing market in the current climate, working closely with industry and lenders.”

Richard Donnell, Hometrack’s director of research, said there were signs falling prices were starting to attract buyer interest but warned it could be some time before the market stabilised.

He said: “We may well start to see a moderation in the rate of monthly price falls.

"However, with ever growing uncertainty amongst households over the broader economic outlook the current re-pricing of housing still has some way to run.”