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Influential independent estate agents insisted this week that the property market is not as bad as it's being painted in the media.

Faced with scare headlines, member agencies of the Mayfair group called a summit meeting to pool ideas and adopt common strategies.

Many of the agents at the gathering had survived two recessions in the past. Some remembered the 1974 property market crash.

In a joint statement after the meeting, the agents criticised lenders who had offered buyers mortgages at well over one hundred per cent on income multiples of five and even six times a borrower's income. The group maintained: "It was only a matter of time before a period of harsh re-adjustment would follow. It happened in the early 80s, it happened again in the early 90s and it is happening now.

"The reality for the time being at least is that there are some good reasons to be cheerful, reasons that mean the market will probably see a soft rather than a hard landing.

"The upper end of the market is still quite active; sensibly priced individual properties in popular locations and in good condition are still quickly finding buyers; lenders are modifying their lending criteria to more prudent levels thus helping buyers borrow sensibly; there will be fewer mortgage products so less (confusion about the) financial market and the readjustment in property values will mean that people who could not afford to buy a year or even two years ago will be able to enter the market.

"The signs that property professionals see on a daily basis are hopeful ones," insisted the agents from firms across Buckinghamshire, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Essex. They urged the national press and media commentators to stop "publishing negative reports with shocking headlines that distort regional realities and generalise to the point of reckless and damaging naivety."

Marlow agent Andrew Milsom who attended the meeting in St Albans said it was generally agreed that "the current hiatus stems largely from irresponsible lending on a worldwide scale.

"There is no doubt that there are areas of deep concern in the market with the value of urban flats under the greatest threat from the credit crunch.

"But even here prices have adjusted to such a level that investors are showing clear signs of re-entering the market.

"This news is at complete odds with national press headlines that just will not leave the front pages."

4:37pm Friday 16th May 2008

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