Many property experts declared that 2006 would be the end for the current property boom with prices that were no longer sustainable, yet 2006 managed to be another booming year with Nationwide reporting average an average house price increase of 10% or £45 a day.

Will 2007 see the tide turn? The figures release by Nationwide yesterday were not quite so buoyant and showed an overall increase in property prices of just 0.3% in January the smallest increase since May 2006. On top of this disappointing figure, we have the Bank of England reporting that mortgage approvals for December were at the lowest rate since April 2006. Therefore it does seem that the recent increases of interest rate are having the desired dampening effect. Finally the Council of Mortgage Lenders have reported that home repossessions have trebled over the past 2 years with 19.00 homes expected to be repossessed this year.

However, despite these three reports there does still seem to be quite a few optimists around, David Stubbs at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors says prices will rise for at least the next five years and Fionnuala Earley at Nationwide agrees, saying there is no reason for growth to stop, although she believes the market will cool this year with increases in property between 5-8%.

Property Signals are not quite so optimistic and predict that 2007 will be prove to be a significant turning point in the UK property market's current boom which has run well into injury time.