Jason - do you own or rent the tent?

A return to reality in terms of house prices will be very beneficial to people in the long run but sadly in the short term it is difficult to see this not being the cause of recession.

A 30% fall in real terms is the minimum we can expect.

george, london,

i live in a tent :)

jason palmer, london,

The slowing of new builds construction due to no buyers will result in a housing shortage. House prices have fallen and buyers still can´t get mortgages due to high deposits. We are heading for a price explosion due to a housing shortage as soon as the credit crunch is resolved maybe 2010/11.

Micad, Chelsea, UK

David Delaney: The LR figures lag hugely the Haliwide ones. Halifax also use a dubious averaged 3-month figure, the real comparison of June 07 to June 08 shows a >8% drop. But as others have said, this is just the start. IMHO they are likely to overshoot before settling at 3.5x earnings. So 50% off!

Jon Cooper, herts. UK,

Great!

Can someone explain why this is BAD news, after TEN YEARS of heinous inflation and current, massive over valuation? Sure recent buyers will lose out, but that's not the point. HOUSE PRICES ARE MASSIVELY INFLATED AND NEED CORRECTING. Another few years of this is what we need.

Joe, Manchester,

Prices will always cycle and this normally works out to be a good thing. If you hold on to your property in the current market, things will get better. The value of an average property in the trough of 1995 had actually trebled by 2002!

peterj, malvern, uk

Accentuate the Positive.

No more property programs.

ronnie, bucks, UK

Houses are not very expensive to build, neither is land purchase in this country, developers have huge building land reserves. Have the building companies stopped building purely because they can't make the hugely inflated profits they have until now?

Paul Groom, London, England

As a home owner i dont care. What i can see happening is thousands or would be 1st time buyers holding out for the market to bottom out only to find themselves in a new ladder where gazumping will be rife yet again. Welcome to the boom and bust cycle of property.

Patrick, London,

'Reversion to the mean' is the name of the game. In the long term property prices can rise more or less in line with the rise in earnings. Any prolonged period of faster price rises must be followed by a period of slower price rises or even price drops. But timing these processes is difficult...

Eddy Verhaeghe, Oostende, Belgium

'House prices dive 6.1% in worst fall since 1993'.

Why not 'House prices dive 6.1% in BEST fall since 1993'?

eric campbell, harrogate, uk

This is getting to be a 'spot the estate agent' contest when it comes to comments.

Paul, London, Canada

Following the progress of your headlines on this subject since the turn of the year, at what point do you think or predict even, that a house will be Free?

Tonto, London,

I think everyone needs to calm down a bit, its hardly a full scale house price crash now is it?! Surely one way to fix the issue, and bring interest back to the market would be for the government to offer some relief for the people who WANT to buy houses but can't because of the mortgage problem.

Paul S, crawley, England

Actually, according to your previous stories, house prices have gone up! Previous, it has been quoted the average house price is £178K. Now it is £180K?!

Stop with the scare mongering.

michelle, London,

We've had property ladder- now welcome to property slide. This week's episode features the eviction of a family from Leeds as they struggle to meet their mortgage repayments. Also Phil and Kirsty meet up with a retired couple who's Spanish investment property has halved in value.

barry dupont, brighton, w sussex

The land registry is 3m out of date. It also relies on the headline transaction amount, ignoring the cash back and discount features from housing developers and therefore reports too high.

Samantha - how about wait for 30% drop, and be £75k better off - or sell, rent and be £150k better off.

TC, London, UK

If you're looking to trade up and have equity in your home and cash to do it, now is the time to do it. A 10% drop on £250k is a lot less than on a £500k home. You could be almost £25k better off.

Samantha Hawkins, Wrington, North Somerset

I can't believe that some people (David Delaney for example) are still in denial about house prices crashing and seem to think that blaming it on the media will make it go away!

Blaming it on TV house development programmes didn't stop them rising unrealistically did it?

Alex, Salisbury, UK

I have been an Estate Agent for 27 years. Never seen anything like this, you can smell the fear out there, especially from by to let owners. Expect the market to fall close to 15% this year.

Victor, London, UK.

If the pace of the last 3 months continues, it works out as 20% annualized. The Nationwide figures work out very similar.

I don't notice many banks reporting that figure!

Will, London, UK

If i was a bank I wouldn;t lend money either then when the market was cheap enough i'd buy up all the hottest real estate for myself and rent it to all those in need of housing at premium rental prices. Lovely!!!

karl, leeds, West yorkshire

Big deal, the average house price is still way too high.

Paul, Coventry,

Bruce - or house prices will remain significantly more than 3.5x salary and those who can't afford to buy will have to rent.

Phil, Reading,

You may report it as the 'worst' fall since 1993 but you could equally suggest it is the only fall since 1993 (bar a few local fluctuations.
A Harris needs to check his history - Mr Brown's 'debt binge party' couldn't have started before May 1997, I think he might be confusing it with Mr Lamont's!

S Anderson, Brighton,

House prices are still up year on year on the most accurate measure ie the Land Registry. These sensationalist headlines are becomming a bore. Do the authors have their own issues or is it simply a matter of shifting papers?

David Delaney, Eastbourne, UK

The average house price will fall until they reach 3.5 x average earnings= approx £100k. I make that another 43% drop over the coming 2 years. This will leave 100's thousands in serious negative equity, a proportion of which will go under. The rest will become financial lepers.How times have changed

Bruce, London,

Many property experts still blame the credit cruch for these price falls. They seem to think that property prices and the issue of credit have nothing in common. I saw Fioneauulla Earley say it on SKY news the other day.

barry wiseman, bromley, kent

Its no coincidence that Halifax has chosen to publish this on the morning of the MPC vote. Vested interest pressure.

However, the time for MPC action on house prices was back in 2003 when prices increased 20%+.

But back then Gordons debt binge party was only just getting started.

A Harris, Kettering, UK

Ah slightly higher than 2 years ago! That's a relief then! How long before they start saying higher than 3 ,4, or 10 years ago?

Paul Davis, York, uk

This is now a full scale house price crash. Property prices are likely to fall over 50% as banks revert back to traditional lending and deposits. The days of inflating your salary on self certification mortgages (liar loans) are over as well together with the risky newbuild buy to let sector.

Gavin, London,