You pays your money, and you take your choice, except, it seems, with house price surveys, where conflicting figures can baffle the general public.

Today it was Nationwide. But as regular readers know, there are also monthly figures from the Halifax and Hometrack, plus government data from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Land Registry. Which is right? Who to believe?

The battle lines between building societies and estate agencies appeared to be drawn today when Hometrack issued a statement which claimed that the Nationwide and Halifax's latest surveys of the housing market are wrong and are misleading policy makers.

The June survey by Hometrack - a website run by a group of estate agents - showed that house prices have fallen by 3.6 per cent on an annual basis. "Other indexes that show rises, such as Nationwide and Halifax, are flawed," its statement read.

This may prove to be more than a spat over a difference of opinions between economists, however.

The monthly surveys have been suspected of having a tendency to "talk up" the housing market, stimulating the interest of potential buyers and thereby generating business for the sponsors of the surveys.

Hometrack has claimed that its figures, derived from reports from 3,500 agencies around the country, tend to lack some of the regional biases that affect the Nationwide and Halifax's surveys, which are based on those companies' mortgage trades. Hometrack's house price figures are based on sale price, while Halifax and Nationwide's are done at the point of mortgage approval. When interest rates were at historic lows, many home loans were being granted at more than the asking price of the properties, in anticipation of rapidly rising equity. This will have inflated the rate of house price growth.

But Hometrack this morning said: "This does not in anyway explain the major differences between the indexes."

The apparent divide between the estate agencies and building societies may be the strongest signal yet that the much lauded "soft landing" for the housing market has been anything but, and that estate agents are noticing a more rapidly contracting market.

"Housing surveys documenting an increase in annual growth are misleading policy decision makers and the Bank of England," John Wriglesworth, Hometrack's economist, said.

The first indication of a market decline is a lack of activity. Sellers - who always believe their home is worth more than someone might pay for it - are slower to adjust to lowered expectations than buyers. Hence the suggestion of "stalemate" on prices reported today by the Nationwide.

But the most significant trend in the housing market - and one which has been foretold by Times Online for nearly two years - is the way in which the lack of first-time buyers, having been priced out of the market, will impact up the chain. With the lowest number of first-time buyers in more than 25 years, at 31 per cent (as against 50 per cent in the marketplace usually), activity at the bottom end of the market is at an all-time low.

Hometrack believes that this has distorted the figures on other indices to show property prices rising, because the proportion of more expensive houses being bought and sold in the overall marketplace has increased.

"House price surveys that are dependent upon transaction prices are not taking into consideration the property prices across the whole market and are therefore distorting the figures and over-egging the market. This distortion is currently at its most marked with the extremely low levels of activity at the bottom end of the market," Mr Wriglesworth says.

This morning also saw reported the third successive decline reported in consumer confidence. All home owners are consumers, and if they are pessimistic about their own economic outlook, the dangers for the economy at large are evident.

If Hometrack is right, or at least "more right" in its assessment of the housing market than the Nationwide, then the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee, which meets next week, may well need to be more concerned by the housing market than it has been suggesting recently.

Please click here to register your vote in our e-poll.