The impact of lenders removing cheap credit deals from the market will help make the housing market more affordable for would-be homeowners, it has been claimed.

In recent months, the credit crunch and the impact of repeated interest rate rises have contributed to a slowdown of the housing market, with recent figures produced by the Financial Times indicating that September saw growth fall to 0.3 per cent, down from 0.6 per cent in March.

Paul Holmes, the chief executive officer of Firstrung, said: "Affordability has been detached from the market place for years as people have had access to cheap and easy credit and the market has been pushed to insane heights."

"Once you bring speculation out of the market by removing cheap credit, then the market will stop racing ahead," he argued.

Many lenders have re-priced their mortgage products and as current homeowners come out of two-year fixed-rate deals, many will be feeling the impact of stiffer market conditions.

Mr Holmes commented: "The cheap credit and the availability of cheap credit has gone, so there''s only one way the market can head now, and that''s downwards."

However, he added that it was not possible to predict when property in the UK would "reach affordable levels for first-time, or even second-time, buyers".