The decline in property prices will end early next year - but recovery will be slow, according to analysts.
House prices will begin to stabilise early next year as the property market slowdown comes to a halt, new research has indicated.
Economists' group the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has predicted that property prices will fall by a further eight percent and then bottom out in the first quarter of 2010. The organisation cited factors such as the slower decline in prices shown in recent surveys by Halifax and Nationwide, along with recent Bank of England figures showing an upturn in mortgage approvals.
Benjamin Williamson, one of the authors of the report, said: "This data, coupled with anecdotal evidence from estate agents and surveyors has led some industry insiders to call the bottom of the market already but we feel that these calls are slightly premature.
"Worsening conditions in the labour market and the wider economy seem likely to counter-balance historically low interest rates and slowly improving credit conditions."
The CEBR report means that properties will have lost 28 percent of their value from their peak in the third quarter of 2007. Additionally, the "sluggish recovery" expected in the real economy by the analysts will mean that property prices only rise by six percent during 2010 and 2011.
