Housing market will dive by 20% and take four years to recover, warn experts

House prices will take more than four years to rise above their 2007 peak, experts have warned.

The gloomy message comes from some two-thirds of 225 members of the Society of Business Economists surveyed for ITV1's Tonight programme.

More than half the experts, from banks, building societies and industry, said prices could plunge up to 20 per cent from the top of the market.

Some 20 per cent of them took an even more pessimistic view, forecasting that property values could slump by as much as 30 per cent.

A majority said house prices would fall by between 6 per cent and 10 per cent this year.

SBE chairman Bronwyn Curtis warned that recent buyers could have to wait 'a long time' to get their money back.

She told the programme: 'It doesn't look like we're going to see a fall, which is what we're in the middle of, and a quick bounce back.

'It does look as though it's going to go on, and we'll have slow growth for some time.'