How far could the housing market fall next year? Will the decrease exceed this year’s average of 15 per cent? Don’t bother to ask Halifax or the Nationwide, those formerly voluble commentators, because they have become rather coy on the subject.

Both have followed the example of the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), the trade body, in declining to issue official forecasts for 2009, having earlier, in the case of Halifax, intimated that prices might be headed downwards. The Nationwide has been producing forecasts since 1988, but the building society will now say little more than that it expects a “bumpy ride”. Halifax, a crystal ball gazer since 1998 and soon to be taken over by Lloyds TSB, asserts that it is “inappropriate” to make a forecast.

Curiously, however, the bosses of these lenders have, like their peers, openly expressed their views. Sir Victor Blank, the chairman of Lloyds TSB, expects a fall of another 10 per cent, which makes him slightly less pessimistic than John Varley, the chief executive of Barclays, who is looking for a decline of 10 per cent to 15 per cent. Graham Beale, the Nationwide chief executive, believes that, by Christmas 2010, the market will be 25 per cent below its level at the start of 2008.

Estate agencies, which are paying the price of the downturn in jobs and turnover, are surprisingly candid about the market’s bleak prospects.

Knight Frank said yesterday: “We are now at least halfway through an estimated 30 per cent peak-to-trough decline.” That would bring values back to their level in 2003, affecting the five million properties bought since then.

Savills, which published its 2009 forecast last month, expects a peak-to-trough decline of 25 per cent. However, the business believes that prime London neighbourhoods, such as Notting Hill and Chelsea, could face a more painful fate, dropping by about 30 per cent overall. Yolande Barnes, the director of residential research for Savills, reported that prices in the capital’s chicest postcodes were down by 20 per cent from their City-bonus-driven heyday in 2007.

Prices in Holland Park, Kensington and Notting Hill have plummeted by 11.8 per cent in the past quarter, as some of their residents were thrown out of their jobs in the City or in Mayfair (aka hedge-fund central). If such people are dangerously “overleveraged” (what everyone else would call “massively overmortgaged”) and need to sell in a hurry, they may need to accept prices as much as 40 per cent below what they paid for their homes, according to Lulu Egerton, of Strutt & Parker.

Ms Egerton said: “We are trying to sell a house in Chelsea, London SW3, which was on the market ten months ago at £8 million. We are now hoping to sell at circa £5 million. For our banker client, keeping his family home is no longer an option.”

The size of the declines in the capital’s smartest locations, combined with the slide in sterling, is beginning to excite buyers who like money-off deals. Ms Barnes said that London property had become 50 per cent cheaper for a Japanese investor and 40 per cent less expensive for a buyer from the eurozone.

Bargain-hunting could mean that the Central London market might start to bottom out towards the end of next year.

Viewing not recommended for those of a nervous disposition

Nationwide (prediction made in September)
House prices will fall 25 per cent between 2008 and 2010, according to Graham Beale, chief executive of the United Kingdom’s biggest building society

Barclays (December)
Fall of 15 per cent next year. John Varley, chief executive of Barclays, which owns the Woolwich mortgage brand, said that prices would fall by between 10 and 15 per cent before the end of the coming year

Lloyds TSB (December)
Fall of 10 per cent in 2009. Sir Victor Blank, the chairman of Lloyds TSB, which is taking over HBOS, said this week that house prices would fall by another 10 per cent in the next year

Halifax (December)
Fall of 20 per cent over 2008 and 2009. Martin Ellis, chief economist for Halifax, owned by HBOS, said at the start of this month that he thought house prices would fall about 20 per cent over 2008 and 2009

Capital Economics (October)
Fall of 35 per cent between 2007 and the end of 2009. The consultancy believes that prices will drop 35 per cent from the peak in 2007 and will not begin to show growth until 2011

Knight Frank, Savills (December)
Fall of 15 per cent in 2009. Both estate agents believe that prices are halfway through a fall of 30 per cent from peak to trough. Savills expects prices to begin to recover in 2010

Winkworth (December)
Fall of 10 per cent in 2009. Dominic Agace, of Winkworth, the estate agent, said that sales prices were down by 20 per cent this year and that prices would fall by a further 5 to 10 per cent in 2009

Rightmove (December)
Fall of 10 per cent in 2009. The property website has released a report predicting that house prices will decline by another 10 per cent next year

Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward (October)
Fall of 5 per cent in 2009. Lee Watts, the managing director of the estate agent, blamed irresponsible lending for a 20 per cent fall in prices this year and predicts that there will be a further 5 per cent decline next year