The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has declared that the house price crash is now over, as reported in the Telegraph.

CEBR has predicted that although there will be further falls of 3% throughout the remainder of 2009, property values will then grow by 2% during next year. It has also suggested the rise may infact be greater due to the collapse in new homebuilding.

Based on these predictions, at the end of 2009 prices will be 24% below their peak in the 3rd quarter of 2007.

This prediction follows the recent positive news reports regarding the housing market:

• Halifax, Nationwide and the Land registry all reported house price rises in July.
• The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, which predicted at the start of the year that prices could fall by 5%, has now said it predicts home values could actually increase in 2009.

However, is it too early to call the bottom of the market?

In my view prices are increasing mow, not necessarily because of greater confidence in the market but because of the lack of supply. Prices bounced up and down for several years during the 1990s slump before recovering on a long term basis.

Mortgage approvals have risen recently but they are still extremely low compared to the levels that have been experience in the past during rising markets. Until mortgage lenders show a greater appetite for lending, particularly to first time buyers with lower deposits my view is any long term recovery is still some time off.

But in order to avoid being too negative even those of us who think this is not the end of the price slump still welcome all positive news in relation to market conditions. News has been negative for a long time, so any change to that sentiment in a great boost.