As far as the housing market is concerned, the real indicator is in new build.
The house builders are really pulling back and many have stopped strating new developments and finishing of current developments.
The reasons for this are that a) Mortgages are hard to come by and people have less money because of rising living costs.
Just because interest rates are not at 15% does not mean things are better. Thats political spin.
when things were at 15% people borrowed less because the payments were so high and people borrowing are guided on what the monthly repayments are not the amount you could borrow.
A change of a couple of % when rates were 15% did not seem that much extra cash to pay out or have back.
If you have borrowed when rates were say 4% and have rates go up to 6% then that means a 50% increase in payments. A significantly different scenario.
when rates were 15% you might have borrowed £20,000. with rates at 4% you would have borrowed £120,000.
Now go figure.