The fun part is over; let the long hard slog begin!

Oh dear.

We may have to postpone the month in which Nationwide's house price index (non-inflation adjusted) goes five-year-on-five-year negative until May 2009. The average price now (March 2009) is £151,000, as against an average price in May 2004 of £149,000.

Interestingly, according to the Monthly Indices (post '91), in the sixty months from January 1991 to December 1995 (when prices bottomed out again), there were twenty-eight months in which prices showed an increase (compared to the previous month). April & May showed increases in four out of those five years, but there was never an increase in August or September.

The post '91 index misses out the first proper year-and-a-bit of the post-1989 crash, but to be fair, we've also had the first year-and-a-bit of the glorious post-2007 crash, so now we're in for the long hard slog. Those who have sold-to-rent and who have to keep their respective Her Indoors on a short leash know what I mean!