According to Your Move, the effect of five hikes by the Bank's monetary policy committee (MPC) during the past year will see property values decrease in August. The estate agent network predicted that house exchange prices over the course of July will increase by 0.94 per cent to an average of 182,748 pounds.

However, next month is forecasted to see a fall of 0.34 per cent with the typical home now costing 182,134 pounds. Compared to the same period 12 months ago, house prices are forecasted to have increased by 9.46 per cent as of the end of July, compared to an 8.8 per cent rise in the year ending August.

Meanwhile, agreed property prices (when an offer to buy a home has been accepted) in July decreased by 0.47 per cent to 182,218 pounds from the 183,080 pounds recorded in June. As a result, the firm claimed that such figures only act as "further reinforcing" for forecasts that August and September will see a curbing in property prices.

David Newnes, managing director of Your Move, said: "Successive interest rate rises which might have reined in house price growth have not actually led to a fall in prices but the August prediction shows the first signs that the MPC medicine is starting to bite through on price growth. Significant numbers of borrowers were immune to rate hikes as they had taken the wise precaution of choosing a fixed-rate loan.

Now that many borrowers are coming off those cheap fixed-rate deals and having to pay a higher rate of interest, the MPC's rate rises are starting to have an effect by cooling price rises which is exactly what they wanted to achieve".

He added that as a result of MPC increases, the value of property is set to decrease over the coming weeks, with September predicted to be a "sober" month as prospective buyers look to get larger discounts on the asking price of homes.

Meanwhile, Mr Newnes claimed that the forthcoming staggered introduction of home information packs is unlikely to have any major impact in terms of driving house prices down. Consequently, he reported that any further interest rate increases by the Bank would be unnecessary, as the housing sector is predicted to "remain robust" in the medium to long-term.

As a result of the announcement from Your Move, potential first-time buyers may find their difficulties in getting on the housing ladder eased. At the beginning of the month a study by Abbey indicated that millions of consumers are spending money meant to be going towards making a property deposit on other items.

Some 11.2 million of those putting money aside were said to have "dipped into" such a savings account at least once, with 888,000 Britons doing so every week. Managing director of Abbey for Intermediaries Ricky Okey claimed that the figures "go a long way" into revealing why many people struggle to buy their first home and incur difficulties making homeowner loan repayments.