Add to that conflicting reports of house price growth over the crucial third quarter of this year - some say it is up by just over 3%, while others say it is down by the same amount. Mortgage shop founder Siobhan agrees it is a local obsession.

Spiralling house prices have made Northern Ireland the most expensive place in the UK to buy a property outside London.

But while the property price boom was initially hailed as manna from heaven for homeowners, Siobhan argues the housing landscape here has changed - and not all of it for the better.

She explains: "Equity in a house gives people confidence. People live from month to month and now they are able to do that, but still have a cushion."

However, she claims over-confidence in a booming market is not without risk: "There are those people who felt they had to have a buy-to-let property so confidence can go a step too far."

Now she claims the market is typified by price slashing and 'gazundering'.

Gazundering is the reverse of gazumping, and involves a buyer agreeing to one price only to drop it before completing the sale.

"Vendors won't talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about dropping prices by tens of thousands before selling," she says. "And that is happening here on a very big scale. No purchaser is really that proud of doing it, but it is happening.

"We had a property agreed for £535,000 and two days before completion it was dropped to £495,000 and the vendor didn't bat an eyelid or try to negotiate," says Siobhan.

In another instance, a vendor saw the agreed price plummet from £375,000 to £335,000, according to Siobhan.

"There are very few completions now without that going on," she claims. "It is going on, it is just to what extent we don't know."

But she claims the real losers are those who bought when the market peaked earlier this year: "The whole momentum got completely out of control too quickly. The bottom line is if you bought in the last year you paid 20% too much - which is not too comforting." And while established homeowners should be able to ride out the storm, recouping any losses in the next six to nine months, the usual vulnerable groups such as first-time buyers and low income families could be in trouble, according to Siobhan. She claims house prices could take a tumble in local towns, despite reports to the contrary. The Halifax House Price survey for the third quarter of 2007 revealed towns such as Newtownards and Carrickfergus have seen the fastest rise in house prices in Northern Ireland over the past year of 62% and 58% respectively.

"I worry about towns outside Belfast being affected," she adds. "I think Belfast will be alright."

She agrees, however, that buying property is all about timing. So how does the average house-hunter crack the code?

"I can make informed choices because I can see all the reports, but anyone could have seen the rate of growth was so extraordinarily high and frenetic it was not for real," adds Siobhan.

A property investor herself, she offloaded a house last year when she believed the writing was on the wall: "I knew it was the right time - if you see figures like 50% growth in Northern Ireland - it is just madness."

And despite some reports indicating a dip in house price growth here in recent months (down 3.2% for the third quarter of 2007, Halifax), Siobhan believes it is not over yet: "House prices are still too high for first-time buyers unless they buy through Co-Ownership." But the market itself could give first-time buyers a leg up on the property ladder. "I think if prices go back 25% it will kickstart the market again. The buy-to-let (property) owners would have to sell. They have houses within a first-time buyers' price range which could bring this type of buyer back."

Despite the fall-out of spiralling house prices here, she believes the government is committed to both first-time buyers and the goal of affordable housing: "I don't think the Assembly is just paying lip service to this issue. There has been an affordable housing review and our ministers are looking to the Southern model to see what has worked there. "

She fears, however, the pace of change may not be quick enough: "It is one of the issues of an immature government." Siobhan claims a three-pronged approach is the way forward for an overheated local market. "A combination of a 25% price drop, interest rates coming down and the government helping them (first-time buyers) with stamp duty. And, yes, I do believe the first two things will happen," she says. More importantly though, is the need for a new message to reach beleaguered first-time buyers who feel priced out: "We need something to turn them on again as they have been totally turned off."

With bidding wars and competition from investors a thing of the past, Siobhan says there is some good news: "There are opportunities for first-time buyers now. Prices are still too high. However, rents will have to go up in the not too distant future, so it will be more attractive to buy." These days the Mortgage Shop's business is more about homeowners than first-time buyers: " The number of first-time buyers for us has fallen from 25% to 14%, but remortgaging is up from 40% to 60%," says Siobhan.

For her, the message is clear: "People are remortgaging to carry out significant improvements to their homes. Paving and conservatory companies are seeing a huge rise in business. People do significant improvements to their homes when they plan to stay there for a while as they will not recoup the costs otherwise."

And ironically, it is all that extra equity being enjoyed by many local homeowners that is being spent on lavish home comforts, such as luxury kitchens and bathrooms.

But househunters who want to splash the cash are being accommodated by all too eager lenders, claims Siobhan: "Part of the problem in the Northern Ireland market was that lenders were too liberal, compared to the Republic of Ireland where it is still quite hard to get a mortgage."

She claims self-certification, which happens with some lenders here but not in the south where a host of documents are required, simply "encourages people's greed". Self-certification basically means a borrower doesn't have to go through the usual channels to prove their income by providing pay slips - and this, she claims can lead to over-stretching.

"The lender isn't looking at affordability," says Siobhan. At the Mortgage Shop proof of earnings is a requirement which, in turn, is evidence of a responsible attitude to lending.

She admits, however, the mortgage process in the Republic is time-consuming, but believes this bureaucracy could be reduced while retaining responsible lending.

Nonetheless, crucial differences remain between the two market places: "The average first-time buyer in the Republic earns 30,000 euros a year (£24,000), and they are aged 19-20. That is one of the big problems for first-time buyers here and incomes need to go up. Their numbers (first-time buyers) have dropped to 14% and of that percentage, most couldn't do it without help from their parents."

And this time, it is the 'olds' equity which is taking a bashing. Siobhan urges caution: "Even that is problematic in the long term. What if their (the parents) equity goes down? Also what happens when they want their money back?"

She takes a similar attitude to the trend here for buying with a friend: "We point out that at some stage, one will have to buy the other out."

In the wake of the Northern Rock crisis, however, the financial industry has put more safeguards in place: "We could get back to the days of being interviewed and that might not be a bad thing. If a mortgage is made very easy for you to get, do you really think about the repayments?" Siobhan says the ideal scenario would involve government-backed initiatives whereby social and private housing are part and parcel of the same scheme.