House prices could take four years to return to peak levels, according to a survey of leading economists.

More than 60 per cent of Members of the Society of Business Economists (SBE) polled by ITV''s Tonight programme said that property prices would not recover to record prices reached in 2007 for four years.

Half of respondents to the survey said that property prices could slump by 20 per cent from their 2007 peak and one-fifth of those that ITV surveyed said house-prices could drop by as much as 30 per cent as a result of current market conditions.

Bronwyn Curtis, chairman of the SBE, said: "It doesn''t look like we''re going to see a fall, which is what we''re in the middle of, and a quick bounce back.

"It does look as though it''s going to go on."

According to Halifax''s house price index, the value of property slumped by 2.4 per cent in May and the Council of Mortgage Lenders said that house prices would fall by seven per cent by the end of the year.