A GLOBAL nuclear war followed by a new dark age of terror and despair could further depress the UK housing market, according to the Halifax.
As North Korea continued its missile tests, a survey by Britain's biggest mortage lender found that 63% would be less likely to move home if the school catchment area was overrun with three-headed monkey-dogs or gangs of mounted cannibals.
A spokesman said: "Buyers would be more cautious in a post-holocaust market, particularly if going outside resulted in certain death.
"Over the medium term we predict that prices would drop by up to 30% as the blackened survivors run around in terror, bleeding from every orifice and the landscape is transformed into mile and after mile of charred, smouldering hell.
"However, there will be some great bargains for anyone with a few iodine pills, a radiation suit and a flamethrower. So it's not all doom and gloom."
Tom Logan, deputy director of the Association of Mortgage Lenders, inisted there would almost certainly be opportunities for young, professional couples who were not coughing up too much blood.
He added: "Getting on the housing ladder could be as simple as heaving the former occupants onto the ever-growing pile of burning corpses in the street.
"And, best of all, you won't even have to check if they're still alive as the police and Crown Prosecution Service will, at the very least, be chronically short-staffed."
