Only the 'Gold Trafford' triangle seems able to buck an ever-downward trend

Prices here have historically been low - the average property in Blackburn, for example, costs only just over £110,000. Even in Greater Manchester it is still not difficult to find homes below that price: Wigan, Oldham and Salford can all undercut it and the average terraced house in Rochdale is less than £100,000.

But these areas are the ones hit hardest by the economic slowdown - the region's average annual male earnings are now almost £3,500 a year below the UK average.

Nevertheless, estate agents insist that short-term falls in house prices must be seen in the context of values in the north west rising 78 per cent since early 2003, compared with 56 per cent nationwide.

Doing well

Despite price falls this year, properties in Cheshire are still worth 5.1 per cent more than in the spring of 2007, according to the Land Registry.

Top-end property markets in 'Gold Trafford' - the Wilmslow/Alderley Edge/Hale triangle in Cheshire - rely heavily on selling £1m-plus homes to football stars. These have suffered in the downturn, but less than lower-priced homes bought by mere mortals.

Doing badly

There have been spectacular falls in recent months in Blackburn (down 11.8 per cent between January and April, the most recent data available from the Land Registry), while Blackpool was down 6.2 per cent in the same period and rural Lancashire by 5.5 per cent.

Hometrack, a property consultancy analysing estate agents' sales data, says that people putting homes on the market in the north west are taking 11.4 weeks before they find a buyer, longer than across most of England or Wales, and sellers are agreeing on deals that represent only 91.6 per cent of their new, lowered asking prices.

However, anecdotal evidence direct from agents suggests the picture may be much worse than that. The market in Manchester, where 81 per cent of all homes built between 2003 and 2006 are apartments, is particularly exposed to high levels of what Experian calls the UK's 'sub-prime' borrowers.

John Halman, of Gascoigne Halman in Cheshire, says: 'Activity levels are at an all-time low as the market looks for confidence. Any vendor lucky enough to sell is going into rented accommodation and, as a consequence, there is a build-up of purchasers waiting for the market to change.'

Jonathan Clayton of Blackpool agents Bentley Higgs is even more pessimistic. 'A very gloomy picture, with no end in sight' is his verdict.

Tell-tale signs

Estate agents in Liverpool, where sales were to have been buoyed this summer by the city's status as European Capital of Culture, have reported a downturn of up to 50 per cent in deals since late 2007. Earlier this year, local press reports said there were as many as 15,000 unoccupied buy-to-let flats in the city.