So, according to the Halifax, house prices saw their biggest monthly fall ever in October. Already economists have queued up to tell us why we must not read too much into the findings. But yesterday saw a comment from an interesting perspective. Fionnuala Earley, she who used to be the housing spokesperson at the Nationwide, had words of wisdom.

You have to feel sorry for Fionnuala Earley. She is a member of a profession which spectacularly failed to call the recession. But Ms Earley had a high profile job, so while her predictions were no worse than the rest of the motley crew who called themselves economic forecasters, her errors were made in the full glare of the media spotlight.

The Today programme’s John Humphrys is not known for being kind to the people he interviews. But even so, when the Nationwide came out with its monthly housing reports back in early 2008, and Ms Earley was on the show saying things such as “due to the strong economic outlook we expect house prices to rise by such and such over this year and next,” you could feel Mr H was biting back a sharp retort. Instead he resorted to a few wry comments and his tone of voice rather implied raised eyebrows at her comments about a strong economic outlook. Mind you, on one occasion, even Ms Earley’s voice seemed to portray a slight embarrassment with the report’s findings. Later on she did in fact become a lot more circumspect, and of all the housing economists was perhaps the less insanely bullish.

Anyway, she is now the consumer economist at RBS. Yesterday she said: “The 3.6 per cent fall in prices during September reported by Halifax is shocking, but it’s a mistake to read too much into one month’s figure. This is true when markets are stable, but when transaction levels are low and markets are at turning points, the data tends to be particularly volatile.”

She is right, of course. One cannot read too much into one month’s findings. Even so, the omens are not looking good for 2011.

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