According to national reports, the housing market has been booming for the past five years. But, as Mike Parker discovers, the situation in the North-East is a much more chequered picture.

"If you walked down a street in Darlington, in 2002, and it had a For Sale board outside a house, it would have turned to Sold before you'd had time to pass it," said Mark Abley, managing director of Darlington-based Coniscliffe Financial Planning. "Now, the majority of properties seem to be on the market for the long-haul.

"The local estate agents are having to work extremely hard because first-time buyer properties are still moving quickly, but nothing else is shifting. "

This picture contradicts the national message of ever-increasing property prices with a seemingly endless supply of buyers prepared to fork out vast sums of money for bricks and mortar.

Mr Abley said: "In the South and South-East, plenty of City executives are earning massive bonuses, which is still driving property prices. It is a strange market as you also get a lot of foreign buyers in that area."

Simon Brown, operations manager at Browns Estate Agency in Teesside, agreed. He said: "People should take what they read in the national papers with a pinch of salt - it doesn't always reflect what has been happening in this region.

"They talk nationally about a housing boom, but there hasn't been a housing boom in our area since 2003. Since then, the market has been steady at best and we have had the odd flat period. We are now in a fairly flat period for some segments of the market, although there is still strong demand for properties under £150,000 and at the top end of the market."

According to property sale website Rightmove.co.uk, average house prices for the DL3 region of Darlington slowed heavily by 2004, and for certain properties had slipped back in price by last year.

Its figures show that in 2002, the average price of a detached house was £144,799, a semi-detached was £88,230 and £47,295 for a terrace. This rocketed in 2004 to £213,783 for a detached, £134,527 for a semi and £83,333 for a terrace.

Prices peaked for detached houses in 2005, at £248,838 - a figure which slipped back to £237,752 this year. Semis peaked at £155,992 last year, before slipping back to £154,558 this year.

Only terrace houses have continued to rise steadily year on year to reach an average price of £101,399 this year.

And while house prices have soared - and in the case of terrace housing more than doubled in price - wages have failed to keep pace.

From 2002 to 2006, the average weekly wage in Darlington rose from £340 to £381.90, a growth of little over eight per cent. With average annual earnings just shy of £20,000 and the average terrace property topping the £100,000 mark it makes even the most affordable housing a stretch for first-time buyers.

Mr Brown sees this as a major influence on the deceleration in the local housing market. Couple that with uncertainty in the financial markets and the recent credit crunch, and he believes the property market is going to be a bit sluggish in the short term.

He said: "Much of the market is probably going to be fairly slow over the next three months, but I don't really see house prices changing significantly because we haven't seen the growth of the South."

However, this weakness may also prove to be a strength should buyers get nervous about the state of the economy and the security of housing.

Mr Brown said: "I'm not sure we are likely to see a huge burst in the bubble because we haven't had a bubble to burst. We are lucky we haven't had a bit of a boom recently because it will affect us less if there is a cooling-off period. We are going to get a softer landing than most other areas because we haven't had the recent growth. It might also mean we get going again more quickly. Hopefully, confidence will return quickly and the market will recover. There are already some signs of this, now that the dust has started to settle from the recent turmoil in the markets."

There is no doubt that the changing nature of the housing market in the early part of the 21st Century has had a profound impact on individuals' pockets.

Mr Abley said: "People are finding there is not a lot of money left at the end of the month and they are starting to rein in their leisure pursuits. The rise of things like council tax, mortgage rates and energy prices are largely inconsequential in their own right but, collectively, they have an impact.

"People are having to work harder to put savings away to make sure they are looking after their future."

This situation is not helped by changing attitudes to debt and the purchase of expensive goods.

Mr Abley said: "We have got a 'buy now' generation that isn't prepared to save for things like their parents and grandparents would. People have been encouraged to take on more debt and have become used to it. As long as you understand what you have got it is fine, it's when you don't that it becomes a problem."

So, where does this leave the local housing market at present?

The advent of Home Information Packs (Hips) has unbalanced the market with a rush of houses coming on the market prior to the deadlines for introduction of Hips for four and three-bedroomed properties.

With the information packs costing anything from £350 each, it has also given rise to people speculatively placing their properties on the market ahead of the Hips deadline to test the water.

The impact of the recent credit crisis has still to be assessed and the fallout from the introduction of Hips will have to settle before the state of the housing market can be fully understood.

With turbulence in the equity markets also a growing concern, investors will be considering carefully where to place their money in the near future.

Mark Abley, of Coniscliffe Financial Planning, can be contacted on 01325-349707. Simon Brown, of Browns Estate Agents, can be contacted on 01642-603603.