So we hit the final month of 2009 with many of us breathing a sigh of relief and hoping that 2010 will have something more positive to bring to the table. The year started shaky and quietly as buyers trod with caution wondering whether they should be buying at all with talk that the market would drop further and drop further it did. As repossession after repossession hit the market for the first time in years the lack of activity in the property market in the first half of the year confirmed what most buyers had predicted might happen, that indeed the market did have further to fall. The second half of the year bought a wave of activity as peoples confidence returned once again with the stabilising of prices being caught static at around 15-20% lower than 2007. Prices have continued to stay static since and buyers, mainly first time buyers that had held off previously not only because of worries that the market had further to fall but also because of lack of lenders willing to provide funding now find that as long as they have a sizable deposit they have been able to secure a reasonable mortgage. We also saw the return of the overseas investor enjoying the benefit of the plummeting British pound against their currency and taking the opportunity to invest in a falling market. The last month or so has seen a severe lack of stock due to the amount of buyers that have secured a bargain basement purchase, we also saw an influx of vendors trading up realising that to sell their existing property and upgrade in a falling market would be a very lucrative realisation. It has indeed been a very tough year for us all in one way or another but I’m confident that there will be at least a few people that will look back on 2009 as the year that they saw their window of opportunity and for those that were able to seize it – well done.