Relief from falling house prices could be around the corner, figures published today indicate.

Rightmove, the property website, said that a sharp fall in the number of homes coming on to the market and an increase in interest from buyers meant that an end to house price falls was in sight and could happen as early as the end of this year.

Asking prices had fallen by 1.9 per cent between December and January to an average of £213,570, according to the site’s forecasts. Average asking prices in London had fallen by 1.3 per cent to £386,653.

Rightmove found that the number of new vendors had more than halved from 89,000 last January to 43,000 this month, while there had been 429,560 buyer inquiries in the first two weeks of January, compared with 199,762 over the same period in 2008.

The chronic lack of supply was at odds with the high volume of properties for sale during the 1990s housing downturn and indicated that demand and supply were aligning more quickly this time. Rightmove added that the dearth of property could translate to an increase in average asking prices in the next few months.

That assessment offers hope to millions of borrowers concerned about negative equity or their ability to remortgage.

The Times Monday January 19 2009