The accusation “you treat this house just like a hotel” used to be levelled only at twentysomethings averse to chores and not paying their share of the bills in the parental home. But now the hotel-home comparison is the new yardstick for gauging the fall in the value of that property. To how many nights in the alternative accommodation of a hotel does the decline in the price of your home equate?

By Christmas, a property priced at £1 million in January 2008, is set to be worth £180,000 less, or £493 a day. This is more than the cost, at £450 a night, of an Executive King Room at the Ritz. The slide in the value of the average house, £29,1138 or £78 a day, would secure more a modest, but still comfortable, sojourn at the Best Western, Ilkley.

For many homebuyers, these calculations could be too painful. For example, prices in formerly evervescent Northern Ireland will have slumped by an average of 33 per cent by the end of this year, according to Savills. This would be more than twice the average nationwide drop.

Yolande Barnes and Lucian Cook, Savills' gurus, forecast a further fall of 11 per cent for the main market in 2009, which would give an an average price of £136,123. This would represent a decrease of £45,957 from the price at the height of the boom, £182,080, and would return the market to its 2003 levels.

The Savills forecasts for 2009 ought to be the cure for those still in denial about market's sorry state. Not everyone is thinking: “If I had sold up at the end of 2007, it would have cost me less to move into the Premier Inn/the Connaught, than my property has subsequently lost in value.”

There are (although it may be hard to credit it) still owners who believe their properties are of such merit that they have not been affected by the downturn. They will doubtless also tune out of Savills' expectations on the arrival of recovery. Northern Ireland may have to wait until 2018 until prices regain their 2007 level. But, by 2012, the South East should have recouped its losses and be poised for further growth; London and the South West will follow a year after.

In the interim, subsiding prices should be an opportunity for twentysomethings to leave the parental home behind for a place of their own. But would-be first time buyers are likely to be held back by the continuing lack of mortgages. Those parents who still have equity in their properties, despite the market's downward direction, are likely to be out shopping, with cash purchases accounting for 35 per cent of transactions, against about 25 per cent at present. Some mothers and fathers will be buying for their children who will check out of the family home thanks to the Bank of Mum and Dad.