The last time we posted something on house prices, our regular reader, the Pat Butcher Fan Club, commented that things have been looking a good deal grimmer in the second-half of this year.

Bang on the money: today’s house price survey for September from t’Halifax shows a 3.6 per cent fall, a record drop since they started doing the monthly survey in 1983 (when, it might be noted, the Tories ushered in a previous recession).

The usual riders apply: t’Halifax survey is a national one, based on that building society bank’s mortgage book, much of which is based north of Watford. The market conditions in London and the south-east, and therefore Croydon, may not be exactly the same, with greater demand for homes being an underlining influence.

That said, when Croydon Tories’s axe falls on 2,000 council jobs, that’ll be 2,000 households affected.

Today’s reports on the Halifax findings included these sort of phrases:

“Analysts were cautious about reading too much into one month’s data but noted that recent mortgage approvals data had also pointed to a weakening market and that fragile economic conditions meant the outlook was bleak.”

Other experts suggested that Halifax’s September figures could be “just be a blip”, since rival mortgage lender Nationwide reported last week that house prices rose 0.1 per cent last month.