The boom years are at an end for the Province's housing market.

An expert now says that Northern Ireland is likely to see falling prices for up to three years.

The leading economist, University of Ulster academic Mike Smyth spoke out amid fresh evidence of the credit crisis, with UK mortgage approvals plunging.

Mr Smyth said: "My own gut feeling is that we will see overall falls of five, six, seven per cent each year for two or three years, which would be pretty bad."

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The senior lecturer warned that last year's unprecedented boom was driven by investors and had nothing to do with the fundamentals of the housing market.

At the same time, it has emerged the number of UK mortgage approvals has fallen to their lowest level since the 1990s - and the number of mortgage products on offer from lenders has also fallen by 40% in a month.

One lender, the Co-operative Bank has even announced it was withdrawing its two-year mortgage range on a temporary basis – the day after another company, First Direct, announced it was withdrawing its entire mortgage range from new customers.

(BMcC)