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The tone of house price surveys grew markedly more pessimistic this week as no early end to the mortgage famine seems in sight. These are the two key trends: homeowners, burdened with higher bills for almost everything, are in no mood to contemplate relocation, which is bad news for businesses such as estate agents, removals firms and homewares retailers. Second, the performance of different locations is diverging: for the moment, at least, Scotland is proving resilient while the formerly irrepressible Northern Ireland is struggling. Here is what you need to know about the facts behind the figures:

Hometrack

The June figures from this housing information business paint a picture of a market that is stagnating. Prices slipped by 1 per cent in June and the numbers of new buyers registering with agents were down a further 5.7per cent. A property now remains on the market for an average of 10.3 weeks before selling (in June 2007 it was just six weeks) and achieves an average of 91.6 per cent of the asking price, against 95.6 per cent a year ago.

Land Registry

These statistics - from the Government department that registers land and property deals - show that the average price in England and Wales remain unchanged in May. However, the North East and the South West were down by 2.4 per cent and 2 per cent respectively. In March, there were 53,080 sales against 106,047 a year earlier. Before you conclude that all this information is out-of-date, remember the hierarchy of house-price statistics. The Land Registry numbers may lag behind but they are a very good guide, as they are based on prices at completion rather than on asking prices.

Nationwide

Prices in June were 6.3 per cent lower than a year ago, but the pace of decline did slow a little to 0.9per cent, against 2.5 per cent in May.

The weakest performer was Northern Ireland, where prices have fallen by 18.6 per cent over 12 months and by 9 per cent over the last quarter. Prices in the Province grew by 79 per cent between 2006 and 2007, fuelled by the peace dividend that was clearly unsustainable. In 2006-07, London also outperformed other regions (but not by anything like such a wide margin as before). It is now moving more into line with the broader national trend, which is remorselessly downward.

Key quote from Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's chief economist: “Estimates of buy-to-let house purchase activity held up very well, accounting for 19 per cent of completions in the first quarter, against the average of 14 per cent over the last three years.”

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