Is anyone considering the savers in all this. Many who have lived and bought their houses in the days of 15% morgage rates. What about a fair rate for those who are living from their savings?

Stewart, Preston, Lancs

It is time for the house prices to tumble and meet the traditional ratio with wages and make life affordable for the British people once again. The hypnotism for proprty on the global masses should end and end to greedy property deals. The house is there for living and not for speculation. People spend all their wages on rent or morgage, so nothing is left to spend and enjoy. The interest rates should stay if not rise in order to tackle the inflation. Just look at the food and petrol prices. I should not mention transport and other .....
people should wake up to the fact that you could not expect to pay minimum wages and at the same time the properties to cost milions. Please wake up and face the music. The property prices go round in a cycle and now we are going towards the bottom. Hold tight and remember: The house is for living and not speculations and to make you rich.

George, London, London

I remember at university, our economics professor said only a fool would try to forecast house prices. After this we spent over a year learning the skills needed to become one. Using various economic and analytical models, the truth was that with normal patterns it was easy, but throw in a trebling of oil prices or a Northern Rock and anything could happen! Hence here we are, 3 months of declining prices could be the start of a 6 or 12 month trend leading to the 10% or more falls many are forecasting. However if I could find my old model I would be looking to put in the unknown. How long will the Capital Markets be closed for, this will be the prime mover of a crash if kept locked, not housing supply and demand. A swift conclusion is needed for Northern Rock, taxpayers want their money back. A medium term decline due to a 30%or more shortage of mortgages would cause big trouble. However, on the other hand, this could be Mr Brown,s spoonful of medication to bring back normality

Steve Nicholls, Huntingdon,

I think all those people who think that 6.3% is an "amazing growth rate, need to look at it another way.

Let's say you have bought a house, purely as an investment. In this example, you need to take a mortgage to purchase the property. An average mortgage rate is 6.6%. If the growth in house prices is 6.3%, it's cost you 0.3% to "invest". This is an even more important fact when you consider many people over the past decade have decided property is the very best investment possible, and have used property as the bedrock of their pensions for example.

Even if you are not purchasing a home as an invesment, I think this news would concern you; if you bought your house last month, you've just lost around £2,000.

Oh well. If you bought a house in the last year or so though, this simply means, that now is probably not the best time to move.

Hassan Azam, Banbury, Oxfordshire

"House prices in the 12 months to November grew by 6.3 per cent. This is the lowest rate of growth this year"

Unfortunately, we have become so used to double digit house price inflation that when prices are UP year on year by 6.3 per cent, we end up with dramatic headlines like the one on this page.
6.3 per cent increase is still amazing. You can't measure the housing market month by month, because prices/demand always drop or slowdown around November/December.
I don't see what all the panic is about?

Chris, Liverpool,

actually, catherine, australia has had 17 years of successive growth but suffered two quarterly falls in gdp in 1993q3 and 1993q4, if you check the RBA data for GDP.
so the way the figure is expressed, australia has not had more sucessive quarters of gdp growth.

BL, london,

Falling property markets may take some froth off prices but the real problem lies with the high street. Our economy is more like the US economy than many and they are experiencing an earnings recession. The banking system as it was is freezing up. The BofE needs to reduce by 2% immediately to prevent the system from falling apart.

Will, Lincoln, UK

Sorry Catherine, It says developed nation....

HRT, Forfar, uk

It can be matched - Australia has had over 68 successive quarters

Catherine , birmingham ,

It is absolute nonsence to imply that because house prices are falling that interest rates should be cut.
As other writers have said, where was the pressure to up rates when the prices were rising!
Are we really crazy in not understanding that house prices are overvalued and if they did not fall than they would continue to rise to even more ridiculous levels.
I despair. If rates are cut tomorrow i will give up on the MPC. They will just be another government controlled department giving in to vested interests.

nic, royan, france

Bring it on! Raise interest rates. This'll mean my future house will be even cheaper when I buy in a couple years time!

Chris, London,

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has only got to meet an inflation target.

I fail to see how rising or falling house prices on their own can really be a reason for changing rates.

I can't believe that following oil price rises, commodity price rises, food price rises, wage rises etc that inflation should do anything but rise in the short to medium term.

Surely this means rates should stay the same or indeed rise?

Jon Stapleton, London,

Why should interest rates be cut now that house prices are regaining normality?

If interest rates had been put up in response to the massive rises in house prices maybe we would not have found our selves in this mess.

Lucy, London,

In Manchester and Nottingham there are hundreds of newly built flats that have been empty for many months. The owners, or their banks, will wake up to the reality that they are overpriced - I am waiting to see very substantial price cuts.

Tom, Cheshire, England

The CPI inflation measure used by the Bank of England does not include housing costs.
Consequently it was not used to attenuate the boom in house prices on the way up, therefore I fail to see why it would be used to attenuate house prices on the way down.
So called expert economists should be more concerned about inflation which is very high and needs higher interest rates to control it not lower.

James, NI, UK

All this panic over -1pct ?? whats it going to be like when we get some proper corrections post city bonuses.........

rob, london,