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According to a report by property search website, Rightmove, homeowners are slashing their asking prices by £6,500 in a bid to sell their home. In the four weeks to November 8, the average asking price of a home in England and Wales was £223,000 - a 2.9% decrease on the previous month and the largest fall.

Rightmove has been experiencing a sharp downturn in the number of estate agents advertising on its website. The company, which operates the UK's largest property portal and claims to advertise around 90% of British homes for sale, has reported that up to 300 estate agents are terminating their agreements each month. 

Taylor Wimpey is the latest housebuilder to reveal the full extent of the downturn in the UK property market. The company has revealed that its order book for the first 44 weeks of 2008 fell by around 40%, to 6,607. The figure compares with 11,074 over the same period of 2007. 

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) has reported that property sales continued to fall last month. The decline took the number of transactions to its lowest level since records began, in 1978. A lack of mortgage finance meant that sales per estate agency averaged 10.9 during the three months to the end of October, with completed

The chief executive of Nationwide Building Society, Graham Beale, is predicting that house prices will continue to fall during 2008/09 and possibly into 2010. Mr Beale is expecting a peak to trough decline of 25%, after which improved affordability ratios will encourage first-time buyers back into the market.