England and Wales is half way through the housing market correction, with prices set to fall by a further 10% in 2009, a property website has predicted.
Rightmove said average asking prices in England and Wales had now fallen by 10.2% or £24,692 from their peak in May, and it expects sellers to drop their prices by a further 10% next year.
But it added that while asking prices had fallen by 10%, feedback from estate agents suggested actual sale prices had dropped by 25% from their peak.
The group expects the market to bottom out during the second half of next year, although it thinks prices will "bump along" at the bottom for at least a year.
Miles Shipside, commercial director of Rightmove, said: "On the basis that prices actually being achieved have fallen by a quarter, we predict that overall prices are now within 10% of bottoming out."
But he added that although the recent rapid decline in prices was likely to tempt mortgage-ready customers back into the market, this would not herald a price recovery.
He warned that the housing market in areas where major employers or predominant industry sectors collapsed would face long-term challenges similar to those seen in the former mining communities.
He added that there were local markets that differed significantly from the average so far, with some sought after properties holding all of their gains in extreme exceptions, while in other areas oversupply had depressed prices by as much as 50% for their peak.
Rightmove's prediction came as it reported that asking prices had fallen by a further 2.3% during the four weeks to December 6, knocking £4,829 off the average price to £217,808.
The latest fall follows one of 2.9% during the previous four week period.
