House prices due to fall by 25% next year - News - Evening Standard
       

House prices due to fall by 25% next year

HOUSE PRICES are set to collapse by 25 per cent next year as new mortgage lending dries up completely, the Treasury has warned in the small print of the pre-Budget report.

The PBR forecasts that prices will fall for at least another year until 2010. A supplementary report by Sir James Crosby also predicts that banks and building societies will effectively freeze lending. He warns that unless the Government acts quickly, new mortgage lending will fall to zero next year. The only fresh activity will be homeowners re-mortgaging.

On the Treasury's figures, house prices will plunge by a quarter in the next 12 months and will only recover modestly in 2010. The Chancellor has already tried to help the property market with a one-year stamp duty holiday on homes worth less than £175,000.

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