House prices will fall 10% next year, Rightmove says

Property website Rightmove has predicted that house prices will continue to fall in 2009.

The property website predicts that prices will fall by a further ten per cent but will bottom out at the end of 2009.

Despite this forecast, Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, has suggested that it is an "impossible" task to try and accurately predict when the prices of property and land will hit the bottom and when the best time to buy a plot is.

He adds that you only recognise that moment "when you look back at a consistent history of cheaper deals".

It has been revealed that the average asking price fell by 2.3 per cent in December to £217,808 - down from £222,979 in November.

Because of the lack of transactions, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has also suggested that it may not provide its own forecast for 2009.

"There is questionable value in making a prediction on prices," a spokesperson for the CML said.