House prices will bottom out say May 2009
I feel that is too pesimistic, what we have at the moment are a load of chancers making rediculous offers purely on the back of media stories. The banks cannot afford to keep borrowers at bay. The criteria for loans and mortgages will be relaxed soon, the fuss will be over around the end of the year. I might agree that house price mania maybe subdued for some time to come, but that is probably a good thing.
I get the feeling that most people and organisations generally do not feel any more insecure than they did a year ago. For example, the IT consultancy that I left for aviation now is expanding with nobody on the bench, 2005 was the last time it was so good for them. I'm, erm, pretty sure I wasn't causing that much damage.
As a side note, I really don't think oil and house prices are as relevant to the economy as some understandably believe. One cannot take individual specific commodities and apply their state to the state of the economy as a whole. I think the economy is now much more robust than it is generally given credit for, this is probably because there are now more powerful players in the world and the US and is increasingly a peer rather than a driver. Saying that, a slowdown will probably help rather than hinder in the medium to long term.