British house prices fell at a record annual rate in July to their lowest level in two years, according to data from Britain's biggest mortgage lender HBOS.
Prices fell by 1.7% in July, the sixth successive monthly decline, according to the lender's Halifax house price index.
That took them nearly 10.9% lower on the year, a sharper decline than at any time in the last housing crash in the early 1990s.
'This continues the run of bad news on the housing market. Declines have been pretty unrelenting for the last six months,' said Dominic White at ABN AMRO.
'This could go on for the next year,' he said.
More than £20,000 has been wiped off the value of the average British home since the peak in prices in August last year and economists say prices could fall by another 10-15% as lenders have tightened up borrowing terms.
The grim news came as Bank of England decided leave its key short-term interest rate at 5% after its latest monthly policy meeting.
Most analysts expect the BoE to cut rates at some point, even if not for a few months, as the housing market slide takes its toll on the wider economy.
Housebuilders have announced thousands of job cuts and furniture retailers have been hard hit as the number of property transactions has halved from a year ago.
Earlier this week, a study by ratings agency S&P said house prices could fall by another 17%, which would increase the number of British households in negative equity from 70,000 to 1.7 million next year.
