The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) expects house prices to fall by at least 7 percent over the next year, the Times Online reported yesterday. It attributes this decline to the Credit Crunch, which has all but obliterated consumers’ hopes of purchasing properties for the foreseeable future. RICS further predicts that property sales will fall by a staggering 40 percent if stricter lending conditions do not ease up, reports the Times.

While RICS predicts that prices will stabilise sometime next year, it was careful to explain that, given the current housing market instability, it was difficult to predict the recovery of the market with any degree of certainty.