Nationwide’s survey shows that prices have subsided by 17.6 per cent over the past 12 months, a record decline since this index began in 1952. In that year the average house price was £1,891 – which is £39,186 in today’s money.

In the intervening decades, housing market statistics have become a subject of almost obsessive interest, no matter how painful they may be to read when values are falling. An equal fascination, however, is growing in what the figures do not tell us. The Nationwide and Halifax surveys may provide a guide to the direction of prices. But these numbers are based not on sales of properties, but on mortgage valuations – the amounts that valuers acting for lenders, such as Nationwide and Halifax, estimate that homes are worth.

For the past few months, there has been something of a row over the decisions of valuers. They claim that they are acting with proper professional prudence in a climate forecast to remain gloomy. But their critics assert that fear of litigation from lenders is causing valuers to be unduly pessimistic, an approach that is further depressing the market.

Whatever the influence of valuers (baleful or not), the market decline is providing opportunities for bargain hunters – the older, well-heeled buyers prowling the streets and auctions rooms. Their cash purchases are not included in the Halifax and Nationwide surveys, although they are captured in the Land Registry figures, which would be more useful if they were not several months out of date.

This tardiness is a shame, as we would all like more information on cash purchases, which are a fast-growing proportion of all transactions – 40 per cent at the last official count and more in some locations.

Peter Rollings, of Marsh & Parsons, an estate agency in London, says that such sales account for 70 per cent of his business. Why are people buying now, amid forecasts of further price weakness? One individual summed up the appeal of real estate in uncertain times: “With property, you can lose your shirt, but you still have the wardrobe.”

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