The BBC is running features about £10 tricks to make rented rooms feel like home — the kind of desperate creativity that comes from knowing you'll never own the walls you're decorating. But here's the number that changes everything: house prices just fell by their largest amount in over a decade.

The average UK house price dropped from £1.45 million to £1.40 million between 2021 and 2022 — a £49,000 fall that marks the first significant decline since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. (Source: Office for National Statistics, House prices by local authority)

This isn't just a statistical blip. It's the market finally cracking under the weight of interest rate rises, cost-of-living pressures, and a generation priced out of homeownership altogether. For existing homeowners, it means watching their wealth evaporate faster than they can renovate. For renters spending a tenner on fairy lights to make their temporary space liveable, it's still not enough to matter.

The trajectory tells the real story. House prices climbed relentlessly from 2018 through the pandemic boom, peaking at that £1.45 million average in 2021 when cheap money and lockdown fever sent buyers into a frenzy. Then reality hit. Mortgage rates doubled, inflation soared, and suddenly those dream homes became nightmares of unaffordable monthly payments.

But here's the bitter irony: even with prices falling, homeownership is still moving further away for most people. A £49,000 drop sounds massive until you remember that's still double what houses cost in 2010. The 'correction' has barely dented the mountain of unaffordability built up over the past decade.

Meanwhile, the rental market that forces people into £10 room transformations just got worse. Landlords who bought at the peak are now underwater on their mortgages, pushing some to sell and others to hike rents to cover their losses. The people decorating rented rooms with budget tricks aren't just shut out of buying — they're paying more to rent the homes that homeowners can no longer afford to keep.

This is what a housing market correction looks like in 2023 Britain: prices fall, but not enough to help. Homeowners lose wealth they thought was guaranteed. Renters keep paying more for less. And everyone pretends £10 room makeovers are about creativity rather than making the best of a broken system.

The data shows we're in uncharted territory. House prices haven't fallen this sharply since 2012, but unlike previous crashes, this one isn't creating opportunities — it's just reshuffling who gets hurt.