House prices in biggest fall for 15 years as credit crunch bites

12.15.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 10th Apr 2008

House prices fell by 2.5% during March, their biggest monthly fall since the 1990s housing crash, as the credit crunch and market jitters continued to deter homebuyers. The figures were published by the UK's biggest mortgage lender, the Halifax. House prices are now 1.1% higher than they were a year ago, the slowest annual growth rate for 12 years. Gordon Brown claimed the UK was well placed to deal with global economic crises, saying the figures should be seen in the context of 10 years of big increases and low interest rates.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable said "We are only at the early stages of a market fall. Ministers are now being pressed by the banks to provide liquidity to keep the flow of loans going. It must be made absolutely clear that this is conditional on banks accepting the losses from their bad loans and not offloading these onto taxpayers via the Bank of England. It is also clear that falling house prices are linked to the difficulties many borrowers are having servicing their debts. There will be an epidemic of repossessions unless the Government forces mortgage lenders to moderate the process by offering shared ownership and payment holidays to keep people in their homes."