The current antics of the property market are providing a boom-time nostalgia moment. Listen to the tales of gazumping, greed and sealed bids as buyers chase the few properties available — the shortage is particularly acute in London and the South East — and you could almost believe you were back in the summer of 2007 and Rihanna was singing Umbrella, the season’s chart hit.

In recent weeks, such has been the frenzied activity in parts of the capital that some estate agents feared a bubble was developing that would be followed by a nasty burst — an outcome that we remember all too well. But, in the past fortnight, the pace has slackened a little which allows space to reflect on the market’s true state.

There is a consensus that the worst is over, although there may be small price falls next year. However, in unemployment-hit areas of the Midlands and the North,conditions remain depressed, in contrast to the exuberance of London and its surrounding über-towns such as Winchester.

Meanwhile, despite the hubbub from the area within the M25, very few homes are changing hands. In 2007, an average of 160,000 properties were being sold every month. This has shrunk to around 57,000.

Many more people might like to be moving home but they are being compelled to stay put because of a lack of equity, or spare cash. Nowadays, homeowners are divided into two camps: the “equity haves” and the “equity have-nots”.

The first group, whose borrowings are much less than the values of their properties, can get mortgages with ease, if they are still in jobs. The second, who acquired their homes in the boom with 95 per cent-plus mortgages, must stay put because they would not be welcome at most lenders. Unless banks change their lending policies, the equity have-nots may be stuck until 2011, the date at which most forecasters believe the market, outside the charmed zone of the capital, will head confidently upwards.

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers