Ramnik

It's like someone said in a previous running commentary re. house prices when someone was considering putting in a 'cheeky offer' and was canvassing opinion. Someone stated "this year's cheeky offer, is next year's market value". The £70k paid this year could be for prop worth £50k next!

Bernice, , London, UK

George - now is NOT a bad time to buy. What if you could buy a property worth £100k for £70k TODAY? That strategy would work (in my eyes) and I would re-iterate it is not a bad time to buy.

Ramnik Singh, Northampton, UK

Yiannis my old mucka, you're dreaming. These figures are buoyed up by sales from when the market was plateauing in 07 and bear no reality to the realtime situation. Look again, six months from now. The credit crunch is here for the medium term and affordability for the long term.

Robert Allen, Greenwich, London

Ramik, I don't agree with you.
There most certainly are 'bad times to buy.'
Property can be a good investment but it's all about timing, not strategy.

Buy low, sell high.

george, aylesbury,

There is never a bad time to buy property, just a bad property buying strategy.

Ramnik Singh, Northampton, UK

These are two month old figures. Prices and transactions have fallen even below this. The full force of this slow down is going to hit us all in coming months.

Dick chenny, Washington D.C., USA

Yiannis, I admire your optimism but it must be misplaced. We have the most unaffordable housing stock in the world, the most personal/national debt in europe and up until now the lowest pay rises...all this adds up to a catastrophe in the making. Nothing can change this now. Watch it happen....

george, aylesbury,

Why would anyone buy a house if they were lucky enough to be in 'cash liquid' now? Why on earth would you want to do that.....buy at the bottom, sell at the top, 'tos ever thus!
By the way, this isn't the bottom, that'll be in winter 2009/10 with mass unemployment, strikes etc as lagging indicators

emma, oxford,

'House prices won't recover until 2015, ex-MPC expert warns' (Prof Nickell)

I second that quote except that I reckon it'll be 2017 before things really get going again. I quietly removed myself and my core business from the market last year - any fool could see what was going to happen...

tom, london,

Oliver- define young. Im 29 and just had a baby when the market crashed. Now we are stuck in a tiny overcrowded flat. At least it won't be reposessed. How many children will suffer in this way? It's wrong to assume this only affects the old. The strain this is putting on young families is overlooked

Tania, London,

I'm sorry Yiannis but you are living in a dream world if you thing that mortgages are going to be cheap anytime soon. We are in this state becasue of the cheap money we have had for too long. We must go through this pain (and there will be lots) to get us to a state of normality in house prices.

Steve, Edgware, UK

Great perhaps we can start to think about voting Labour again!!!

john, milton keynes,

Yiannis there is little chance of interest rates dropping, as recession and job losses take hold the pressure on the bubble prices will increase. Maybe in 5 to 10 years time. Anyway what we are seeing is a return to normal prices not the hyperinflated ones of the last few years. Sorry rampers!

david barker, eastbourne,

To Chirs... I suppose it the case of pulling the wool over your own eyes.

Ian, Horsham,

Yiannis, property prices are dropping across much of the world. There was already a widespread feeling that markets were strongly overpriced but people bought for fear of being left behind. Surely it'll take more than a fall in LIBOR to convince people that a correction isn't underway?

Jonathan, London,

I don't think this positive for property prices.
Some homes are selling, but only about 1 in 15. There is a huge wall of unsold property, and as these vendors finally realise they need to drop their prices, I suspect the land registry data will to start to look more like the Halifax & Nationwide's.

Mike Livingstone, Reigate, UK

How on earth can there still be people buying houses now? Are these people certifiably insane or what?

chris, brighton,

Perhaps the market is not as bad as assumed on these more relaible figures (completed sales). As soon as the LIBOR comes down and mortgages become cheaper I think there will be a strong rise in property, especially in London. At the moment we are storing up demand.

Yiannis Prodromou, London, United Kingdom

House price falls are not bad news. It is biased towards the old to assume that inflated house prices are good. The younger generation deserves to live in a country in which house prices are reduced to affordable levels and remain there permanently.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,