Hi Anotherpropertyguy.
The article is confusing in the way it presents its statistics. First of all, the first stat sentence says that overall returns have dropped 9.5%. that's no surprise because for the past five years, they have been somewhere between 25% and 16%.

Then he mixes residential with commercial and industrial and retail, and then throws in a mix of comment about returns in property companies (referring to share prices of property companies, but doesn't state whether these are builders or companies investing in retail, commercial, industrial or what.

Anyway, I am sure our primary interest is in the residential sector, and more useful information is obtained from Rightmove for up to the minute movements, then Halifax and Nationwide reports for actual completions albeit lagging the Rightmove figures by around six weeks, because Rightmove publishes asking prices and Halifax and Nationwide publish completion prices.

My prediction is that asking prices will soften only slightly, whereas completion prices will be the ones to watch, though they lag the movements in the market somewhat, they are what's important for longer term trending.

It may well be the case that property prices will drop this year, but that should be of no concern to anyone who has held property for more than three years (unless it's mortgaged to the hilt and the investor can't withstand a return to standard rate mortgages when the initial falsely low interest rate expires). We always say this is a long term business, and if prices do fall this year, it's more likely they will rise again next year.