Crash, recession, crisis, repossessions: when it comes to the state of the housing market, the front-page headlines say it all.

Or maybe they don’t. According to Martyn Gerrard, chairman of the North and North-West London National Association of Estate Agents, the media does far more than simply report the news: it creates it.

The problem is often news stories do not simply outline the state of the market, but rely on speculation and unreliable short-term statistics for a good story.

“The media is the greatest culprit in this,” says Mr Gerrard, who is also the chairman of Martyn Gerrard estate agents, with three branches in the Finchley area and one in Whetstone.

“All the papers are keen to talk the market down as it makes a good headline, but all this does is make people who want to buy wait even longer. Then the market freezes.”

The problem is compounded by unethical estate agents, he says, who “value on hope value, not real value” and deliberately quote inflated prices to sellers to win them over.

When a house remains unsold a month later, they slash the price and claim there has been a sharp downturn.

Mr Gerrard’s glass-half-full view of the market is borne out by Land Registry figures, rarely quoted in the national press.

Between August 2007 and 2008, it records that the average house price in the Barnet borough rose by 1.8 per cent and in London fell by only 3.2 per cent.

This is a more accurate reflection of the market than the generalisations often banded around, Mr Gerrard believes.

“The problem with the national media is that it tars the whole country with one brush,” he says.

“Journalists quote the worst scenario and pretend it’s the norm. But property is parochial. If you look at specific areas, like Barnet, you get a totally different impression.”

So why is Barnet riding the wave better than other boroughs?

“Barnet is a great area, with a strong infrastructure, good schools, good transport links. It wasn’t built up on the back of a housing boom, with people buying to make money and move on. People here want to buy a home. They are nesting.”

Mr Gerrard stresses that the top end of the market has not been so affected by the recent fiscal chaos — proof, he believes, that much of the crisis is in the eye of the beholder.

“Alan Sugar wouldn’t be buying six per cent of Woolworths if now was a bad time to buy. The whizz kids, the financial experts, are all still buying.”

If Mr Gerrard seems less fazed than others in his profession it is perhaps because he has seen it all before — in the Sixties and Seventies and again in the Eighties and early Nineties.

“If it seems worse now than it used to be it’s probably down to the speed of communications,” he says. “Every short-term fluctuation gets reported, giving a skewed view of reality.

“The more negative ‘facts’ that get reported, the more people lose confidence.”

Mr Gerrard does not deny prices have fallen, but believes this is simply the “froth” of the market being wiped off.

For anyone wishing to climb the property ladder he believes there is no better time to buy because the percentage loss on their own property will be less than that of the seller.

Having attended a meeting with bank representatives last week, Mr Gerrard is confident the Prime Minister’s bank bailout will get the market on track again, by unfreezing mortgages.

But what of Barnet’s mammoth regeneration projects? Are West Hendon, Stonegrove and Spur Road estates, all beset with delays as developers feel the pinch, destined for failure before the market recovers?

Mr Gerrard believes developers’ struggles could be minimised by changing affordable housing policy.

“Maybe if developers can’t make a profit on these schemes then the basic premise of the affordable housing system is wrong,” he says.

“Rather than having a quota of affordable housing in every block, which brings down the value of the whole building, perhaps we need to go back to having separate affordable blocks.”

Whatever happens in the short-term, Mr Gerrard remains confident about the future. “Bricks and mortar are still the safest long-term investment there is,” he says. “People can’t be depressed forever.”