More homeowners could find themselves in need of debt advice as news emerged that house prices have fallen for another month.

The decline in property values has led to an increase in the number of consumers that are finding themselves in financial difficulty. Many homeowners thought of the equity in their house as a pension, or savings, medium. Most people regarded this as just about the safest form of investment around, and few people saw the recession coming and the subsequent collapse in house values.

Over the last few years, property equity has helped many consumers to get out of debt. This was usually achieved by remortgaging, or taking out a secured consolidation loan, in order to clear multiple unsecured debts. Now that the equity has all but disappeared, borrowing to solve debt problems is no longer an option. This has left many over-committed consumers with a debt management scheme as their only viable alternative.

According to the Halifax, property prices fell by 0.5% in June with the annual rate of decline now at 15%. They believe that the property market maybe beginning to stabilise after the declines that we have seen over the last two years. The average UK house is now worth just over £157,700.

The reason for their positive outlook is that the quarterly decline in house values, of 1.9%, is the lowest quarterly fall since the beginning of 2008.

There has been some disagreement as to where the market is heading at the moment. According to the Nationwide, property prices are actually going up. Their figures show that property values have increased in three of the last four months, and are now 6% higher than they were in February this year.

It is hard to see any long term prospect of recovery. With unemployment rising every month and mortgage funds still hard to come by it’s hard to imagine that the housing market will re-ignite any time soon.