We now have a reasonable picture of what has been happening to house prices. Official figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government show that prices rose by 1.2% in September, their fourth increase in a row, and are now 6.5% higher than at their low point in March.

Prices have not yet eased the losses of the past year — in September, the 12-month fall was 4.1% — but the gap is narrowing. The latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) showed that significantly more surveyors are seeing price rises. The balance of those reporting increases against those seeing falls rose to 34% last month, the highest level since December 2006. In London, it is hard to find an agent reporting price falls; the balance in the capital stands at 95%.

Where do we go from here? I’ll comment on forecasts for 2010 in the coming weeks, but one way of looking at where prices are heading is by taking the temperature of the futures markets. House-price futures are traded by investment professionals, and have seen an even sharper turnaround than the market itself.

Tradition, a leading City firm, runs its own house-price futures index, based on the Halifax’s monthly measure. Back in February, at the time of deepest gloom in the market, the Halifax was recording an average price of £159,208. According to the Tradition index at the time, the average price a year later would be £125,774, in three years £111,446 and in five years £119,406.

Now look at what the futures market is telling us. The actual latest price (unadjusted for seasonal factors) is £165,430. In one year, it is expected to be £174,942, in three years £177,837 and in five years £186,936. Those three-and five-year numbers do not suggest that prices will race away, but still — what a turnaround. The average for three years’ time is more than £66,000 higher than investors expected earlier in the year.

Some would no doubt say that this merely reflects the volatility of sentiment in financial markets. But it also shows how far the housing market has come back from the brink.

* The total number of repossessions estimated to have taken place this year has dropped to 48,000, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). It revised its earlier prediction of 65,000 repossessions for 2009 after recognising that low interest rates, lender forbearance and government measures have been helping most borrowers who have run into difficulty to keep their homes. The CML says that it expects to see 53,000 repossessions (0.48% of all mortgages) in 2010.

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