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I think we definitely need a crash to make it easier for people to buy properties at reasonable prices. If nothing else we need to open up the debate on house pricing affected schools and the postcode system!!

I have struggled to get on the housing market. This does not mean that I have borrowed beyond my means and that if prices "adust" I will go under. I have worked hard to raise my deposit and borrowed pretty much the maximum that I can. I did this because like so many others I was scared that the market would keep rising and rising and I would never get on the ladder. I have a well paid job and think that its unacceptable that I am not able to put a roof over my head and afford at least one holiday. Why can't we talk more about a shift in pay from companies that make billions in profits rather than a shock in the housing market....

I am a thirty three year old professional worker. My salary is not too bad - 拢25k, but I have no savings and a bit of a chequered credit history. I see no way that I will ever be able to get on the property ladder and get a place of my own unless there is a crash. I wouldn't wish a crash on any of my friends who own homes, but I am contunally frustrated by the predicament I find myself in! I ove around from rented flat to rented flat and would love a place of my own, but it just ain't going to happen..

It's not that I'm so bothered that I can't afford to buy, it's more the fact that even getting some form of subsidised housing is difficult and expensive. Therefore you're stuck renting.

Working in a call center, a as a Team leader I have no chance of getting on the housing market within 30 miles of my workplace. in Cardiff where I live 'key workers' ousing has been mooted, but nurses, junior doctors, Police & firefighters, all earn considerably more than retail & office/call center staff.

By the time I paid off my student debts, the housing market was way out of my reach. A curb on landlords & by to lets is urgently needed in all the uni towns in the UK

I blame stamp duty for people not being able to get on the first rung of the property ladder. We are selling our first home (2 bed flat in London) but only moving because we have to (relocation) it will cost us at least 拢9k in stamp duty alone, not including legal (@拢2k) estate agents (@拢3k) movers (@拢1k) and mortgage fees. Others in our situation ARE JUST NOT MOVING becasue it takes all your savings if you have any or puts you into debt. This means first-time buyer properties are just not coming onto the market in enough numbers. So when those few properties do become available people offer silly money to get their hands on them.....

I am thinking about putting my flat on the market which I bought in April 2004. Leeds had a huge market boom in 2004, apartments were being built everywhere. Now those people who bought flats and apartments in 04 are suffering because of it. I haven't made any money on my apartment and there is some suggestion from estate agents that I bought it at an inflated price and would be lucky to get the purchase price.

I'm one of the new generation of renters. While I don't automatically expect to be able to buy own my own home, I'm now 30 and finding that my decision to start a family is being affected by not being able to afford a home. I work in the non-profit sector, but not as a key worker, and I'm not confident that policy makers are thinking about people like me.

I don't know how these rising house prices are sustainable. If they continue, it just furthers the divide between the haves and the have-nots.

I don't believe rising house prices make most people better off-as house prices rise, so does the cost of trading up to a larger house. So any profits made have already been spent on housing. People feel better off mainly because they have access to more mortgate credit.

I have a well paid job and a few years ago I would have had no problem buying a house in Bristol. Now it's nigh on impossible - to buy the house I'm currently living in would cost me up to 拢300 more than my existing rent payments. Unless house prices crash in a major way, I will be renting for the rest of my life

I have a reasonable income but living in the south-east as a single person I would need to earn in excess of 拢80K to buy a modest (small, wrecked, in need o major work) two bed apartment.

bring on the crash, I've been waiting for it...

I'd personally say yes... but my brothers have only just managed to get back into the market and I'd hate for them to be stuck in negative equity again and out of work following the inevitable recession that would ensue from a market crash... they all got caught out last time and lost their homes then... and ended up owing loads after their houses were auctioned off.

Put simply:
We (the banks) cannot afford a price crash as so much of their funds are tied up in real estate.

(Which is why perhaps Gordon Brown tippy tappies around the problem.)

The safest thing to do in banking terms is do exactly what their trying to do.
A LIGHT touch on the tiller - but not enough to capsize the boat.

Absolutely. I have been working professionally for roughly 5 years since obtaining a graduate degree, and frankly don't have a chance of getting on the ladder with my current debt commitments and mediocre salary. If I wanted to live in the Derbyshire countryside near my parents, well, I would at least need to double if not treble my current salary and then sign up for a 3x mortgage. It's absurd.

One of the most significant problems is those that own more than one property, whether it be as a holiday home or part-time residence, or increasingly those who buy-to-let. They already own a property that they bought when the market was more affordable which they have used as collateral to purchase more. That leaves fewer available for first-time buyers. Higher rates of tax or stamp duty should be charged on those buying up property.

House prices have been getting out of control since Gordon professed to stop them. I bought an apartment in 2004 and was thinking about putting it on the market this month. It seems I am suffering from the boom in 2004 when Leeds was short of apartments and demand outweighed supply. Now things are very different and Leeds has a huge choice of apartments and flats and this has had a knock on effect on those wishing to sell now. Having done some research it seems estate agents are loathed to put it on above the original purchse price, thus I risk negative equity. I don't want things to get worse, they already are for me at least.

I live in Bristol and have been priced out of the market dispite earning well above the "national average" salary. When i do buy somewhere it will be in an undesirable and potentially unsavoury location and will be tiny. I feel that something must be done as there are thousands of people in their late 20's like me - most of whom will end up renting from now on for the rest of their lives... my question is how do we get back to a suitalbe level before we go back to an England where we follow Pareto's rule of 20% of the population owning 80% of the housing stock. They will get rich, whilst everyone else gets poor. Gordon Brown has done absolutely nothing to resist this and to add insult to injury, the stamp duty is some 拢50,000 below the average house price for this area of the UK - ten years ago it was set at the average house price. This is a disgrace and yet another failing of our stealh tax government.

New one-bed apartments are going up in my area but prices start at around 拢200K. Since these prices are unaffordable to many first-time buyers, suppliers have attempted to address this by offering part-ownership schemes. This then means that you may only need a 拢100K mortgage to own your first place but, at the same time, you will only own 50% of the property. This then resets the house price market and provides for a further escalation of prices. Eventually, they will then reset costs by allowing you to only own 25% and so on. In the meantime, the government has no intention of regulating immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe, and UK citizens who work hard and pay taxes remain unable to find affordable properties. Additionally, no-one seems to recognise that we have plenty of green space which could still be developed but politicians seem to afraid to recognise this. Consequently, whilst more and more migrant workers are allowed into the country, more and more UK citizens will be emmigrating to countries with affordable housing and better standards of living.

Why do you infer that being a renter is because you can't afford to buy? Are you also examining the angle that many are choosing to now rent and invest money elsewhere rather than invest it in bricks and mortar?

Hello. I live on the beautiful Isle of Purbeck, south Dorset. This is an area where the average house price is 19 TIMES the average salary. We are swamped by second home owners who we all have mixed feelings about. They (usually) use local tradesmen, (usually) keep their properties very well and (usually) spend money locally. However, local people simply can't afford to buy here and the problem has got so much worse in the last 10 years. Can we not have a local tax (administered LOCALLY) levied on those fortunate enough to be able to buy a second home in such an area as this? A tax that goes DIRECTLY to projects such as www.worthcpt.org building beautiful eco-friendly affordable houses for families and people who wish to remain in the area? It's a brilliant, forward thinking project that has had the full support of The Purbeck District Council. Let's have more of them Nationwide!

Yes, we do need a housing-price crash - and I'm a home-owner!
This lunatic inflation benefits hardly anyone, as very few people can cash their houses in. It forces young people to seek any well-paid job instead of socially useful work that pays less. Families get stuck in small houses as the price gap increases. And many people have lost all chance of ownership.
It has a hidden inflationary effect on other prices too, because workers need higher wages to keep a roof over their heads.
My only concern is for those in negative equity who need to move house - the rest of us can sit it out till we've paid off enough mortgage. Because of them, I'd like prices to go down slowly.

I work for a charity in the South, and it's nearly impossible on charity wages to get into the housing sector, if you don't have family support. All the social housing initiatives either target people with genuine social needs, such as disability, or "key workers", all of whom are state employed. Charity workers are often as badly paid as statutory sector workers, and are doing work society relies upon, but get no help at all.

Single people have similarly been neglected by all Govt initiatives - the focus is always on families.

If you're single and working for a charity - forget it. Owning my own house feels impossible, and I don't see any policy changes which will make any difference to this.

My wife and I earn 拢60k plus between us and we rent.

About a year ago we were about to enter the property market and the max mortgage allowed was only 拢160k, this to leave us without the fear of negative equity. We may have been able to afford a one bedroom hovel so we stayed renting.

Do we need a housing market crash?...Damn right we do?

The only people directly benefitting from this boom are those who have bought properties other than their own home. They are also the main people responsible for creating the boom. Take them out of the equasion and prices would probably drop.

I'm in my mid-40's, dropped out of the housing market, am currently renting and now finding it hard to get back in. I made a modest profit after i sold my last house after a marriage break-up, but had to spend most of the money on new house-belongings. Recently however, my ever more entrenched view has become: why the hell should i get back in and saddle myself with a ridiculous mortgage? I would have to be mad

House prices will always be limitied by the pain threshold of buyers. Irrespective of whether or not there is a crash any artificial mechanism to assist first-time buyers only creates house price inflation. This is a good example of where the free market is best mechanism to look after things.

House prices will always be limited by the pain threshold of buyers. Irrespective of whether or not there is a crash any artificial mechanism to assist first-time buyers only creates house price inflation. This is a good example of where the free market is best mechanism to look after things.

i posted a comment, it was disallowed, there was nothing abusive in it, not going to write it again, is it still stored???

I think we need a radical reform of how the housing market operates for it to work for the people's needs not for the greed of those with access to capital.

I'm from Cornwall, where in many places local people are priced out by second-homers from upcountry. New homes are being built, but generally have a token amount only of "affordable" housing.

Anyway, why should we concrete over our countryside with modern boxes so that they can buy up the cottages our ancestors built and live in them for a few weeks a year.

Personally I have profited from rising house prices in South-West London. However,the government must support affordable housing for key workers far more aggressively, irrespective of what now happens to house prices. It is simply unacceptable that people playing such key roles in our community are simply priced out of the market!

I'm Mr Average. Not rich, separated from wife. Bought a house so that the child who stays with me has a decent home and the one who visits has a decent place to stay. I had to use a large % of my savings to do this and a crash would not do me any good at all unless all types of property fell in the same way. If the "Housing Pound" stays relatively the same then fine. Those genuine folk who buy homes will not lose out because the next place they buy will the same in relative terms. Those who buy speculative property may lose out though. Not sure if I have expalined that very well so hope you get my point.

It would be really nice if for the first time ever on UK tele there was an informed discussion of the relative costs of renting vs buying. The media has had a major part in this housing boom the way it always suggests you must buy because renting is throwing away money. If just once somewhere in the UK media there had been an analysis like this one (below) in the New York Times maybe we'd have a somewhat more rational housing market:

If potential homebuyers tried putting something like the above with their own figures we'd have a housing crash tomorrow.

(if you the above link doesn't work then just google "new york times is it better to buy or rent". the figures are obviously all American but playing with their interactive graph will still give the basic idea.)

I've lived in Europe for the past 5 years, and now that I'm returning to the UK I'm unable to buy anything more than a box. I've become so disillusioned with the situation that I've decided to emigrate to Australia where house prices are sensible and standards of living better.

I'm an engineer with a good salary, how can teachers and nurses possibly afford it?

So.Everybody knows that the housing market is crazy in everywhere.I think that the goverment need to do something better to the poor people, because the uptown people never have troble to buy his first house. I live in Brazil and housing market here is crazy also I have a god job here but I had to save money for long time and finally last year I bougth my first house.

We are first-time buyers in our mid-30s, in London. Or rather, we are not first-time buyers as we don't stand a chance of buying.
So we are uprooting our daughter, and committing to the daily commute to London from Suffolk - and buying a boat to live on, not a house.

I am now reconciled to the idea, but if house prices continue to go up - perhaps more important than trying to control them, would be the creation of jobs outside London, or perhaps subsidised commuting costs, (which will account for 50% of our monthly outgoings).

Gordon Brown does very well out of increasing house prices, taking more and more stamp duty, capital gains tax and inheritance tax while deliberately not raising thresholds.

Once upon a time these were only for the very rich, now most of us have to pay. Unless, of course, you are super-rich in which case he lets your assets escape UK tax.

We can't even leave the proceeds to our children or grandchildren to give them a start on the housing ladder - he takes it instead.

I am in the 鈥淣ew Labour Generation鈥� I was a student when pay tuition fees were introduced nearly 9 year ago and still have 拢7000 debt to show. I am a public sector worker in London on a decent wage, yet my existing debt and rising prices mean that I am unable to buy a property where I grew-up, or live near my place of work. The bottom rung of the housing ladder moves further away every month and I fear am likely to become part of a first generation not to be able to afford my own property. For me and for many others this is simply unsustainable. I鈥檇 like to ask a government minister what advice s/he would have for me and for many others in this situation.

Yes!

The new `class' divide is actually generational and mainly fueled by young people's inability to buy houses.

The only people who can afford to buy are the people who already own.

It was totally irresponsible to allow house prices to rise so much and the Bank of England warned the Government about this.

But they didn't want to lose the baby boomers' vote, who have basically just sat on their arses and watched the value of their properties go up over the last 10 years. Meanwhile, the young are having to rent AND being told to save for their old age because the state will not provide.

And it's not just creating a pool of renters. It's getting to the point where the standard of living is being seriously affected.

Lawyers (!) are apparently `room-sharing' in London otherwise, how will they be able to build up the money for deposits? Goodness knows what immigrants are doing? I have heard stories of them sleeping at work and using nearby public lavatories to wash.

And it's affecting the age at which people settle down. My parents say our generation are selfish and want to have too much fun for too long. Actually, that's not true. None of us can afford to.

It isn't just renters that are adversely affected by high house prices. The high percentage costs of moving house (estate agents fees, stamp duty) make it difficult for many people to move mouse because their income doesn't match their house's capital value. Great if you are planning to sell and not buy, but a nightmare if you need to buy another house. I guess the answer is to "sell to rent", if you can find something suitable.

I'm 25 years old, and have lived in London for 7 years and am currently on a salary of 拢35k. Yet despite this there is simply no way I could afford to buy a decent property in the UK at current house prices. Anything I could afford would be of such disgusting quality at such ridiculously inflated prices its just not worth it. The baby boomers have to take the blame for this. Having been the generation to take it all, with their rush on buy to let it leaves those just starting out in the dust. Why can't simply steps be taken such as higher taxes on second homes and buy to let properties?

Our 26 year old son works full time but can't afford to buy anywhere of his own. Admittedly it's no hardship in as much as we have a great relationship & he knows he can stay as long as he wants. We are extending our house to give him more space, more of a flat as opposed to the one room he has now. He has no intention of renting elsewhere as financially it would make no sense to give up the perks (cable, no bills!) of living with us. And of course he loves us. Ahem!
I do wonder what he will be able to afford by the time he does want to move out, various of his contemporaries, either renting or buying seem permanently strapped for cash, worried about how to pay their bills. I'd like to ask the government where is the affordable housing? Kent, where I live, seems to have new housing springing up on every green spot but it's hardly 'affordable'. Our own house has probably tripled even quadrupled in value since we bought it but while we still need somewhere to live it's irrelevant. It will be relevant to our son once we pop off but that is hopefully way in the future, youngsters should have support now. Julia, Sittingbourne.

Every time interest rates rise I celebrate, hoping that a housing market crash is just around the corner. However, unless the government makes an effort to increase the number of affordable homes available, especially in the South East, the prospects will be bleak for anyone in their 20s trying to get onto the housing ladder.

Rather than providing cheaper houses to buy - which would then only go up to market prices and benefit only the people lucky enough to buy them, the government should concentrate on providing cheap rental housing. Teachers, nurses, bus drivers, employees of all types cannot afford to work in London. Services will collapse, schools will slip further downhill, and so will hospitals. There's no dishonour in renting.

Maybe house prices are not out of control.

Maybe it is inflation that is out of control and house prices reflect it's true level.

If you own property you are no richer than you've ever been before. If you don't own property you may be seriously worse off.

But as someone once said: Truth will out.
If you've recently taken out a big loan to get on some mythical ladder, you've been conned.

I am a self employed 42 year old, reasonably well off business owner and I have been saving for a house for the last ten years. Every time I have enough money to cover a 10% deposit the price of houses goes up and out of my reach. I am not prepared to mortgage above my earnings capacity and cannot believe the amount of people who do and the Mortgage companies who encourage them.
There may well be a crash in the market when people who have interest only mortgages finish paying the interest portion and suddenly have to find the initial purchase price in full.
I am single and I have now decided not to buy a house. I will stay where I am, happily renting and enjoying life instead of working so hard just to pay a mortgage on a house I will have little time left to enjoy after the 20 or so years of debt. Maybe that way I can afford a decent pension because I, and no doubt many others, cannot afford both.

As someone who was priced out of the housing market sometime ago and has since found themselves in a position where they could in theory afford to buy. Question now is (considering the current speculation over the future of the housing market) should I buy. After years of paying rent I will never see again it would be doubly galling if I were to commit to buying a house and find myself with negative equity within a year or two.

It would be interesting to know how many perspective first time buyers are now put off buying because of talk of house price correction if nothing else. Do enough people feel this way for a price correction to be inevitable?

House prices have been activly encouraged to spiral out of control by a number of Government measures.

Supply has been constrained by a restrictive planning system.

Latent demand has been encouraged by a net increase in population, plus the desire to invest caused by the raid on pensions by Brown.

Real demand has been increased by creating a cheap and unregulated supply of debt to fund house purchase.

All of these conspire together to create inflation.

What is confusing is why measures to deal with it put forward by government simply compound the problem by further encouraging house price inflation.

Shared ownership allows low earners in at the bottom of the ladder. But this is simply adding a rung to the bottom of the ladder, which allows the rungs above to rise even higher out of reach.

We need a limit on the number of properties a person can buy to let.

Too many properties are available for rental only. This, along with the accepted shortage of housing in the UK, has contributed to house price increases. I find myself being forced to rent and in doing so pay off someone else's mortgage on their 2nd, 3rd, 4th or nth property.

In Bury St Edmunds, where I am an Independent Member of the borough council, average house prices are above 拢200,000 and rising fast. The reason is that demand exceeds supply.

Rather than finding ways of penalising existing homeowners by crude mechanisms like Interest Rate increases, the government should be providing incentives for local authorities to grant planning consents for developments of 15 or more dwellings on condition that 40% are affordable homes, either to rent or equity share.

To combat the argument that there aren't enough car parking spaces or that traffic congestion will increase, the government should insist that the local council restrict off-street parking places to an average of one per property and that they charge a commercial rate for on-street permits. All other vehicles must go into designated car parks.

In addition, the setting-up of rapid transit schemes to move shoppers and town and city centre workers to and from their cars on selected park & ride sites, needs central funding. Once established, these schemes should be self-financing.

Section 106 Agreements can be made more responsive to public needs so that other issues raised by local electors can be addressed.

The measure of success of this policy would be that house prices stabilize and rise only by as much as inflation impacts on the economy as a whole. Interest rates could then start to fall to a more reasonable level.

We need a downward correction in almost every faucet of our economy to bring a decent living back in line and more affordable to more than just the elites. The lower two thirds of our society has been ignored, forgotten and tromped on in the big shots greedy rush to become richer and richer, never satisfied even with an obscene bank balance.

I actually moved to Washington DC, because I couldn't afford to move back to London after working in Bristol for a few years. In the US the higher salary I obtained meant I could actually afford to buy a house, instead of a studio apartment in the outskirts of London.

Well I am currently priced out of the market - as a postgraduate student this isnt so surprising, but even on my previous research assistant salary, which was I think just around the average annual salary, I wouldn't have been able to buy even a single persons flat in the area I live. Thats not such a big deal, what makes me think there is a problem is that even with my partner, who is a postgraduate researcher, whose salary is moderately higher, between us we would not currently be able to buy a two bedroom house or flat in either of the regions we live. Interestingly, that was not the case two and half years ago. In the last 2 years house prices at the entry level have shot up by about 拢50,000, inthis region, I know this and before this increase we could have got a reasonable mortgage between us if not alone. Its not a problem for us right now, and I dont object to renting, but I just wonder where that leaves your average married couple looking to buy a two bedroom house/flat? Will they be tempted towards mortgages that eat up huge portions of their salaries? I dont see how else you can buy a house - two people could share a single flat I suppose, but that's a big compromise - and I for one would rather rent. My parents lost their home in the 80's following the huge interest rate rises, and they have just been able to buy again. For their sake now, and in memory of how hard it was losing a house which was their major investment, and would have been worth an awful lot of money today, and which they had worked hard for, I dont wish a crash on anybody, but I dont see how the current level of rising house prices is sustainable. Certainly salary scales in my field of work have not risen in any way that could accommodate house price increases in this region.

I am renting with my partner which takes up a third of our joint income.
We have been saving for a deposit but this is taking forever. So we have decided to emigrate to Spain where properties are much cheaper and affordable. It will be a better lifestyle for both of us.

My wife teaches English to refugees, I cut trails for TV and we have two primary school age children. With a combined income of just over 拢30,000 there is no way we can afford to buy a three bedroom house anywhere in Greater London. We do have a mortgage on 50% of a two bedroom house in Bromley as part of a shared ownership scheme without which we would be in deep financial trouble. We used to live in Southwark and were on their Council House waiting list, but in 1999 after waiting four years, we were told we would never get a place to live as the needs of people coming into the country would always be greater than ours.

We need a downward correction in almost every faucet of our economy to bring a decent living back in line and more affordable to more than just the elites. The lower two thirds of our society has been ignored, forgotten and tromped on in the big shots greedy rush to become richer and richer, never satisfied even with an obscene bank balance.

A house price crash is long overdue. The current crisis in housing is one of Labour's most spectacular disasters and if it wasn't for their desperate attempts to avoid a crash, it would have happened years ago. The situation we have now is pure greed and selfishness. No wonder so many who are priced out feel so demoralised. What a hideous outcome for the younger generation, whose ability to put a roof over their heads is all but destroyed. Shame on you Tony Blair. Shame on you Gordon Brown.

I will not be drawn into answering questions that will upset others. Rather, I would suggest that Mr Brown has clearly failed in his stated aim of "not allow[ing] house prices to get out of control".

I think I would support any action he would choose take to make housing more affordable.

I really feel for young people just trying to get by these days.

When I first looked at buying in Edinburgh (in 1997) there were masses of small starter flats on the market at around 拢25-30,000. They were popular with young people - I worked in a record shop and myself and many of my colleagues bought them. You could have a pretty decent quality of life, and a flat on a salary of under 拢10,000.

Then when people moved on to better jobs, or to move in with partners and sold the flat, so there was always a large turnover of those cheap starter flats.

Now, no one who owns a flat in Edinburgh wants to sell. All the advice you hear is "if you're lucky enough to have bought in time in Edinburgh, under no circumstances get rid of the flat; it's a goldmine". It's certainly been true over the past 5 years that those who held onto flats have seen huge profits, while those who sold were priced out the city altogether.

However, that in itself means there's very little supply. It's not that there's a lack of housing. As far as I can see, housing is being built everywhere, and all those little starter flats are still there: it's simply a catch 22. Those who hold the property don't let it go, even when they no longer need it because prices are rising so fast.

It's very bad for young people who want a bit of independence without having to go into vast amounts of debt to do it. But it's also potentially very bad for the housing market, because if prices do start to fall, I can well imagine a sudden rush of properties to market as people try to cash in, leading in itself to a crash which could be devastating for those who have managed to buy over the past couple of years.

I don't see why the British government (or Scottish one) can't have sensible policies to prevent this kind of speculation and boom and bust in the housing market. Other countries manage it perfectly well.

Do we need a housing market crash?
Yes, so that this countries economy can start being built on something worthwhile, like actually making things, and not selling houses to each other.

If houses prices had risen in line with CPI or RPI, people would have more disposable incomes to save for their retirement or actually buy things on the highstreet (which is good for businesses).

The UK populations debt burden has increased from 拢500billion in 97 to 拢1.3trillion today - almost entirely down to mortgages.

Haven't the banks done well!!!!

I am in the 鈥淣ew Labour Generation鈥� I was a student when pay tuition fees were introduced nearly 9 year ago and still have 拢7000 debt to show. I am a public sector worker in London on a decent wage, yet my existing debt and rising prices mean that I am unable to buy a property where I grew-up, or live near my place of work. The bottom rung of the housing ladder moves further away every month and I fear am likely to become part of a first generation not to be able to afford my own property. For me and for many others this is simply unsustainable. I鈥檇 like to ask a government minister what advice s/he would have for me and for many others in this situation.

Everyone knows this is a bubble. People just hope that they will be able to time it correctly and make a quick buck. In general asset price bubbles only benefit those who are really market participants and who can get out totally if things go wrong. The average person who owns the house they live in has not benefitted in any way. It just means we all have more of our total personal wealth locked up in bricks and mortar. If houses cost less we could afford to diversify our assets properly and all hold more of others asset classes such as bonds and shares. Personally as an banker working in the city I could afford to "get on the ladder" but choose not to as i think prices are totally out of control.

The housing market in Northern Ireland is by far the worst in the UK for outrageously over-inflated prices.

In some areas it is now virtually impossible to buy a house under 拢200,000. Considering the typical income levels here, that is absurd.

Many people are forced to rent with no hope of purchasing a house in the future. For this reason, emigration becomes a very attractive option for many.

This situation has had a negative impact on the economy with displacement of the skilled workforce and disposable income at a new low for modern times - the recent performance of the high street retailers is evidence of that.

What are Government, the Councils and the Planning Service doing about this crisis in housing, interms of practical measures? The answer seems to be - nothing.

It seems that the main function of housing, to house people, is being ignored while prices have been allowed to spiral out of control to the detriment of many of our population.

Regardless of who or what is to blame, the Government must take action to rectify the situation by introducing mandatory Affordable Housing requirements for new developments, and other programmes of assistance.

We need action, not just talk ... we urgently need Affordable Housing schemes for first time buyers and those on lower incomes.

Otherwise, we have stepped backward in time, with the gap between rich and poor an impossible one to bridge.

Steve Lockheart

The government needs to stop panicking about house prices falling. The current level of prices is a terrible thing for the country, the younger generation in particular, and is shifting wealth into a smaller concentration of the populace (especially via the land grab of buy-to-let ownership). Yet they keep pursuing policies designed to prop the market up (such as the shared ownership schemes and the panicky HIPs U-turn).

They needed to act earlier to prevent the boom accelerating, but now that it has got out of control, a fall in prices, at least in real terms, is inevitable and would be the best way to end the current property hysteria.

Perhaps the fact that so many of the current government are profiting from property speculation themselves is one reason they have been so bad at seeing the bigger picture here.

I moved from England to France in 1998 for professional reasons. I sold my 4-bedroom detached house in Maidenhead for 拢200k at that time and couldn't believe that anyone would pay so much for it. A few years ago I saw the same house on the market selling at 拢450k and I dread to think what it would cost now.
In the meantime I bought a house in France. Its value has appreciated only a little because the French market is relatively calm, but I am now effectively unable to return to the UK with my family because I couldn't afford a small flat - never mind a detached house near decent schools.
Sacre bleu!

Shared ownership schemes are not the answer to affordability. If house prices carry on like they are who, in 10 years time, will be willing to mortgage themsleves to the hilt so that they can purchase 20% of a bedsit which has a "value" of 1mln pounds.

Also, "affordability" is a misguided concept. Everything can be made affordable, no matter what the price or the interest repayment simply by offering 100 year mortgages (whether you actually get to own it is another matter, but it is still "affordable".

Supply is often quoted as being the problem, which is slightly disingenuous. There are plenty of places to live, but not plenty of places to buy. This is borne out by the fact that rents have been little changed in recent years (if supply was problem, then one would expect rents to rise in line with prices).

At the end of the day, property is the UK economy, politicians know this and will talk it up and come up with schemes (shared ownership) to prop the market up. However, with the spectre of higher inflatino and this higher rates, one really does wonder how long this pyramid scheme can go on for....

I think we do need one and personally believe it's almost inevitable that a housing crash will come to pass at some point in the short to medium term. But it is surely now blatantly clear that the free market cannot provide a resonable solution to one of our society's primary needs - housing. So a crash will bring a necessary correction but there still needs to be an admittance by policy makers that the free market does not provide the answer. Then the state should act to ensure housing is available to the majority at reasonable prices.

Does the panel agree that the government should stop interfering with the cycle of the market using shared equity schemes? Not only are such schemes ineffective in the long term - but also by temporarily sustaining the bubble they run the risk of luring young buyers into needless debt.

I meet lots of people of my age (late thirties) who look like spending the rest of their lives in rented accomodation because their savings can't keep up with housing and so they can never save a deposit. Even for those of us fortunate enough to own somewhere, too much of our income is spent just keeping a roof over our heads.

The only people who benefit from the runaway housing market are those in a position to use property as an investment and the banks who are lending all the money. Everyone else loses because unless you can sell your house without having to buy another you can never gain access to your 'profit'.

Clearly more houses need to be built but something should be done to stop housing being used solely as an investment vehicle.

It's idiotic to allow 'buy to let' investors take over the housing market in university towns. In Oxford whole swathes of what were good, ordinary workers' family houses have become the incipient slums that result from multiple occupancy (unbridled rubbish, untamed gardens, unmuted noise). And the occupants are mostly not liable for Council Tax! Working families are forced to the outskirts (increasing traffic, pressures on the green belt, and damage to communities). All to line the pockets of people who once would have been enriched by the Stock Market with much less damage to the built and social fabric. Unless there is more purpose-built student housing, not only will workers increasingly be priced out but the housing stock in more and more towns and cities will deteriorate rapidly, especially if/when 50% of school-leavers go to University. And when there's a slump in THAT, bang goes the rental market.

Yep. Let those prices tumble.

I'd love to see landlords who've made paper fortunes end up in the gutter. It's what they deserve for trading in that most basic of human needs, namely shelter.

The sooner a person on an average wage can afford a decent place to leave without 40 years of debt slavery the better.

Our economy is built on house price inflation and borrowing against the virtual profits.

When the whole lot collapses the prudent man will finally get his just rewards.

Has there ever been a boom in the price of anything that has not been followed by a bust?

The inevitable crash will be good for the UK. Malinvestment in paiting houses magnolia and selling them to each other will hovefully be replaced in investment in useful, productive assets.

If Gordon Brown manages to postpone his housing crash until the next general election, which is unlikely, the country will be even more globally uncompetitive. How can a British worker with a 拢250,000 mortgage compete against a mortgage free Indian or Chinese worker with broadband internet?

Of course we do, it has wreaked a whole generation of the opportunity to buy or else get head high in debt.
The government need to realise that the country hasn't got richer, it has become more indebted.

I do believe we need a crash. As a graduate on an ok salary, I cannot afford to buy my own home, even here in Merseyside where things are cheaper than down south. What was once a nation of owner-occupiers is fast becoming a nation of renters. One of the biggest problems is the buy-to-let scheme, buying a house, renting it, raising a mortgage on it to buy another house, renting that and so on and so forth. Many people now have a 'portfolio' of property, meaning that there just aren't any houses left to buy. So, as far as I'm concerned, roll on the crash, maybe some of these people owning many properties may sell a few.

The first time buyer has been priced out of the market by the misguided buy to let brigade. The but to let brigade seems to think that property is their new pension. The crisis in the form of a crash that is about to unfold will cause immeasurable damage to people's pensions. While not agreeing with the morals of the but to let brigade, pricing out first time buyers, they have been egged on by the government and loose lending standards. The government should have intervened in the financial markets long ago when it becmae apparant what was unfolding. Like all unregulated markets this one will crash in spectacular fashion causing misery to countless millions.

House prices, especially in London and the South East of England, are desperately in need of a correction to bring them back into line with earnings. It is all very well saying that higher multiple mortgages are more affordable than they used to be due to lower interest rates but that assumes that people are willing and able to borrow 5 or 6 times their salary to get a decent place to live. We also have to remember that such a big debt will be much harder to pay off than used to be the case thanks to those same low interest rates which are a reflection of low inflation.

I have lived in London for 9 years now and am still renting privately despite being in the top 10% of earners. I am simply not willing to borrow so much to pay for a house whose price has been inflated through speculation. This is a classic self-sustaining boom, similar to the internet stock boom and the South Sea Bubble; at some point it must crash. Personally I hope this is sooner rather than later.

Has there ever been a boom in the price of anything that has not been followed by a bust?

The inevitable crash will be good for the UK. Malinvestment in paiting houses magnolia and selling them to each other will hopefully be replaced in investment in useful, productive assets.

If Gordon Brown manages to postpone his housing crash until the next general election, which is unlikely, the country will be even more globally uncompetitive. How can a British worker with a 拢250,000 mortgage compete against a mortgage free Indian or Chinese worker with broadband internet?

I think that in the UK we cannot simply refer to the 鈥楬ousing Market鈥� as a singular market. We have several housing markets and London is the market that is really out of control. Nowadays, young professionals often have no choice but to work in London because that is where most of the employment and career progression is. Rentals of London flats are extortionate which leaves the question as to whether to buy. If I could use two words to describe what trying to buy a flat in London has been like for me I would say 鈥渁 struggle鈥�. The quality of accommodation on offer is low. Any decent property is snapped up by rental investors before a first time buyer has a chance. Estate agents seem to increase property prices by about 拢20,000 every few months. How can salaries keep up with these increases? We need to promote London to young professionals as an attractive place to live and work in order to continue to attract the talented employees of the future. But, with property prices as they are, first time buyers simply cannot afford to live here. Something needs to be done 鈥� London is becoming a really difficult environment.

How can it be I am officially well paid at 60k+ and can only afford to by a glorified council house??? This can't be right morally or economically.

I earn a reasonable salary but if I borrowed four times that salary I would still need a deposit of 拢30,000 to 拢40,000 to buy a one-bed flat on the outskirts of London. I therefore have a choice...save for a deposit or pay into a pension. I simply cannot afford to do both. The underlying cause is that there are too many in society who are unwilling to pay for their keep. If I didn't have to pay so much tax to help pay for all these people to do nothing but breed and watch daytime television, I would be able to make provision for the day when I'm too old to work anymore.

We have been living in a house for five years, when we bought it, we payed x money for it. The house opposite from us has come up for sale, so we asked around and found out how much the asking price was. It was the same as we paid for ours, which is a three bedroom, large house with a large garden which needed alot of work to do it up, this house has two bedrooms, is about half the size, but needs no work doing to it. We have done well out of the market boom. However, the problems associated with the market boom are the result of our supply and demand economy, and this is simply the way things are, unless demand falls through the building of more houses, prices will continue to rise.

Hello,

Yes, we certainly need a house price crash. I am one of the priced out generation, I'm in my early 30's, due to get married next year and want to start a family soon after that. With current house prices even mortgages for 1-bed flats are financial suicide and average 3-bed houses are completely off the radar forever. How am I supposed to bring up a family in a 1-bed flat? Even a 1-bed flat here in Poole requires two incomes to service the housing costs including the mortgage.

In the UK there are not enough houses being built and yet people now expect to own more than one property so that they can rent one for their pension, the buy-to-let disease. How are first time buyers supposed to compete with those leveraging money they've already made to buy further properties? It's a terrible situation, the young, my generation that choose to buy are being enslaved in super-sized mortgage debt to transfer wealth to the older generations or we are renting and funding someone elses future pension.

If the government wants to support 'no limits' immigration which is contributing to housing pressure then they need to build the housing to match the increase in population. They also need to tax buy-to-let to level the playing field for first time buyers. They also need to discourage 2nd home ownership, it currently is taxed less than primary residential dwelling. Not enough houses are being built for people to own more than one, what about the couple in Ashford that now own something like 700!! And there is plenty of land in this country to build on, planning laws need to be relaxed. The housing rights of the many should be a priority over the protective NIMBY attitudes of the few.

If nothing is done the future for my generation is families being brought up in small flats, all sleeping in the same room.

Regards
Richard

House prices need to return to affordable levels. They have been pushed out of reach primarily by lax lending to BTL speculators, fuelled by artificially low interest rates post 9/11, which were aimed at avoiding economic recession and resulted in the property bubble.

Aside from drawing investment away from job-creating enterprise, the property market has created an 'us and them' society.

It is unfair to suggest that the younger generation should have to accept social housing or shared ownership properties. People aspire to home ownership and have a right to have that opportunity as those before them had.

A property market crash is the quicket and best way of achieving equilibrium. The alternative is a long and slow decline in prices that is likely to be more damaging to the economy that a short, sharp shock. A minority of people who have borrowed to excess in the last few years may suffer but many, many more people will gain, including current home owners looking to move to a larger property and of course first time buyers.

Interest rates need to be hiked to at least 7% and stay there for a long time to bring stability back to the economy.

House prices need to return to affordable levels. They have been pushed out of reach primarily by lax lending to BTL speculators, fuelled by artificially low interest rates post 9/11, which were aimed at avoiding economic recession and resulted in the property bubble.

Aside from drawing investment away from job-creating enterprise, the property market has created an 'us and them' society.

It is unfair to suggest that the younger generation should have to accept social housing or shared ownership properties. People aspire to home ownership and have a right to have that opportunity as those before them had.

A property market crash is the quicket and best way of achieving equilibrium. The alternative is a long and slow decline in prices that is likely to be more damaging to the economy that a short, sharp shock. A minority of people who have borrowed to excess in the last few years may suffer but many, many more people will gain, including current home owners looking to move to a larger property and of course first time buyers.

Interest rates need to be hiked to at least 7% and stay there for a long time to bring stability back to the economy.

Thanks to Gordon Brown the UK economy is now dependant on consumerisms fuelled by money withdrawn from an over inflated housing market.

He claims to have made the MPC independent but he retained responsibility for selecting members and manipulating false inflation measures to ensure interest rates remain artificially low.

He destroyed the UK pension schemes forcing more people to look at property as an investment and continues to provide tax breaks to BTL investors who are responsible for the destruction of rural communities and shortage of FTB properties.

He has resided over a whole scale transfer of wealth to the property owning baby boomers leaving and increasingly disillusioned younger generation with massive debts to pay for their education and facing the prospect of higher taxes to pay for an ever increasing proportion of pensioners.

No wonder the government are introducing draconian measures to control and monitor the behaviour of today's young, they know that sooner or later they will start to rebel against a system which aims to enslave them with debt.

My husband and I are renting, with absolutely no prospect of being able to buy in the foreseeable future. Our previous landlord sold the one-bedroom flat we were living in to take advantage of the housing boom. It sold for 拢185,000. A 20-year mortgage at 6.6% interest, for example, would have us paying 拢1410 a month. In that flat our rent cost just 拢795.

A mortgage would eat up one person's entire take-home pay. And just to afford a one-bedroom flat we'd need a mortgage for over three times our combined salaries. We simply cannot afford to buy. Neither of us are key workers, so we are limited in which assisted purchase schemes we can go for, if any.

Every time I see a headline saying that a housing crash is imminent or interest rates are going up I get a little excited, because the dream of owning our home gets a little closer to reality. Right now we are fortunate in that we're renting in a listed building owned outright by a charitable trust, so we are fairly immune to any knock-on effects for tenants as there is no mortgage associated with the property.

We have had to put so many plans on hold, including delaying having children. We are painfully aware that we are essentially throwing money away by renting rather than buying but it is simply impossible for us to buy.

If the MPC seeks to control inflation a crash is now both inevitable and desirable. What kind of country is this when people on average earnings cannot afford somewhere to live and raise a family? The choice Gordon Brown faces is rising inflation (do nothing) or a housing crash (up go interest rates to control inflation). Either the economy becomes uncompetitive, or we have a recession in the UK. The UK housing market has been driven by BTL speculation and sloppy lending, when sloppy lending ends (credit tightens or is withdrawn) and the BTL speculators leave the game (no capital gains, rents don't cover mortgages) the market will slide. People who want to buy a home to live in will gain, speculators and those who bought recently will suffer. The banks gain both ways. The UK will just follow the US, Ireland, France, Spain...
The UK housing market is one of the most procylical in the world.
Deliberate economic mismanagement for the gain of the few. Blair got out just in time (for him).

House prices need to return to affordable levels. They have been pushed out of reach primarily by lax lending to BTL speculators, fuelled by artificially low interest rates post 9/11, which were aimed at avoiding economic recession and resulted in the property bubble.

Aside from drawing investment away from job-creating enterprise, the property market has created an 'us and them' society.

It is unfair to suggest that the younger generation should have to accept social housing or shared ownership properties. People aspire to home ownership and have a right to have that opportunity as those before them had.

A property market crash is the quicket and best way of achieving equilibrium. The alternative is a long and slow decline in prices that is likely to be more damaging to the economy that a short, sharp shock. A minority of people who have borrowed to excess in the last few years may suffer but many, many more people will gain, including current home owners looking to move to a larger property and of course first time buyers.

Interest rates need to be hiked to at least 7% and stay there for a long time to bring stability back to the economy.

The Gov have done nothing to prevent this speculation driven bubble tipified by amature BTL and worse buy-to-sit, will they now promise to stay out of it as it corrects? why should tax payers be forced to pay for other peoples poor investment decisions?

The value of our home has rocketed. Very nice if we were in our thirties or forties. We are not and so my son, who lives with us stands to lose his home when we die to pay off the Inheritance Tax which will be due. So yes please, let us have a housing market crash. So many people would benefit from it.

Gordon has loved every second of this obscene spiral, the money that he has ripped out of stamp duty will do very nicely thank you.

Shared equity schemes are usually put forward as the answer to this problem - but they only inflate house prices and will mean future generation buying smaller and smaller shares in their home, which strikes me as utterly pointless. I feel the only way to control prices is to restrict lending multiples. Would the panel agree?

Gone are the days when a third of your net income was the maximum you needed to spend to keep a roof over your head.Now it's more like half.Demand oustrips supply in the housing market across the UK, and that is why we are all paying such ridiculous prices for even the most basic of properties.
In addition, there are not enough jobs spread across the country and people are living in "dormitory towns" to commute to cities like London, Leeds or Edinburgh, where the work is and where of course, property prices are completely out of reach.
The answer does not lie in turning our villages and towns into building sites but to create a more diverse, localised, skills-based economy, with flexibility for workers.

All parties keep refering to a shortage of supply, look at the stats of 2nd home owners and properties deliberatly kept empty for "investment", full council tax should be payable on all of these properties, additionally planning permission should only be granted on the condition that they homes built are for owner occupyers only (this is enforcable through the deeds).

I can relay a few instances of weight here in the USA. Most people of means always seem to speculate in Real Estate. Over time, property always seems to make money. But now, we have the mega market investors. And they contribute so much money to the people who wield the power , that they seem to be the only players in the game. They have literally torn down mountains here and erected one after another of those ghastly condos and townhomes that resemble so many chicken coops, without form , style , or originality. Since they are like skyscrapers, and you can garnish the most revenue from the least amount of land, up they go, and continue to line the asbestos pockets of Satans greedy contractors. Down come trees, and quarries, and streams and rivers are diverted, and nothing stands between the corrupt politician, the contractors, and the steady flow of cash into their bank accounts. This of course offers new avenues for them to speculate, and keep the unwashed from a share in the promises of a better life. Over here, they have a law, named Emminent Domain. They can condemn a piece of land that some poor snook had saved for all his life, and take it over , putting the owner out in the street, at a price well below it's value. And even if they gave the owner what it is worth, they will make millions , 10 times over after they put up the condo, shopping mall, or God only knows what, in it's place. There is no one to stop them, because most of those in power are being paid off. Small towns are run like families. And only those members are the ones allowed in on the filthy lucre. Where I live, an entire once pristine mountain has been razed and the ugliest condos, cover the entire acreage where once stood majestic Spruce and Oaks. Floods occur , of course , because nothing is left to soak up the water. I don't know how it works in Great Britain, but if there is any way that you can stop it now, do so....I read with interest the last article on the 主播大秀 about inspectors and liscences for building homes etc. Well here, the corrupt make sure that one of their cronies get all the inspection jobs. Plumbing, electric, masonry, lumber, etc. Wonder why the World Trade Center came down the way it did ? There are many who think that it was because of the construction practices that went into it. It actually imploaded and instead of blowing out, one floor collapsed and descended down onto the lower, and so on to the basement. So , be wary, and put a lid on those who would take over the country. It will be hard because they are shrewd, and ownership is handed out amongst dummy corporations, and you never know whom is buying the land, or razing the buildings . Please put a stop, at least over there , there's not much chance here any more.

Please, please don't let them get away with offering Shared Equity as the fix for this major issue. It doesn't allow people to own a house, and it only subsidises prices even higher. It doesn't actually help anyone, except those who already own portfolios of property that become even more overpriced.

Also, please ask the politicians to state how much property they or their families or associates own. Many politicians have vast property portfolios, so there is a glaring conflict of interests here. Lower prices may be better for the country, but not for them personally.

The UK economy is now based on debt - much of secured against an asset with an arbitrary value - property. The way young people have been priced out of the market by Buy to Let investors is disgusting.
Buy to Let investors can leverage the equity in their existing properties and, due to the incredibly lax and risky lending policies of the banks, they can afford property whereas young people have to try to save a deposit.
Given then young people also have university debts to pay off - what chance do they have. The argument that we need a big Buy-to-Let rented sector to encourage mobility is specious. Do you want to have to keep uprooting your family to follow a job?
So, here we are, 10 years on and debt in this country has doubled to over 1.2 trillion and the revenue taken by the exchequer has also doubled. And Gordon Brown has been a prudent chancellor. I'd hate to think the mess we'd be in if we'd had a spendthrift.

Yes! I have been priced out of the housing market. I have a 2 bedroom flat and ideally would like a 3 bedroom house with a Garden so the kids can play there. If I sell my flat now I may get about 拢60,000 equity but a three bedroom around Neasden is about 拢400,000 and I cannot afford to make the repayment. We need a crash to level it up so I can afford to buy a decent house.

My house is my pension fund so the capital I have tied up in it is very important for my future. I have been in the UK housing market since 1989 and do not want to see another crash but we do need a "soft landing" giving a 3-5 year period of price stability before things get out of control.

The UK economy is now based on debt - much of it secured against an asset with an arbitrary value - property. The way young people have been priced out of the market by Buy to Let investors is disgusting.
Buy to Let investors can leverage the equity in their existing properties and, due to the incredibly lax and risky lending policies of the banks, can afford property whereas young people have to try to save a deposit.
Given that young people also have university debts to pay off - what chance do they have? What chance of ever funding a pension too?

The argument that we need a big Buy-to-Let rented sector to encourage mobility is specious. Do you want to have to keep uprooting your family to follow a job and live in rented accommodation to boot?

So, here we are, 10 years on and debt in this country has doubled to over 1.2 trillion and the revenue taken by the exchequer has also doubled. And Gordon Brown has been a prudent chancellor! I'd hate to think the mess we'd be in if we'd had a spendthrift.

The UK economy is now based on debt - much of it secured against an asset with an arbitrary value - property. The way young people have been priced out of the market by Buy to Let investors is disgusting.
Buy to Let investors can leverage the equity in their existing properties and, due to the incredibly lax and risky lending policies of the banks, can afford property whereas young people have to try to save a deposit.
Given that young people also have university debts to pay off - what chance do they have? What chance of ever funding a pension too?

The argument that we need a big Buy-to-Let rented sector to encourage mobility is specious. Do you want to have to keep uprooting your family to follow a job and live in rented accommodation to boot?

So, here we are, 10 years on and debt in this country has doubled to over 1.2 trillion and the revenue taken by the exchequer has also doubled. And Gordon Brown has been a prudent chancellor! I'd hate to think the mess we'd be in if we'd had a spendthrift.

It depends whether you are happy with the redistribution of wealth from young to old. The people using the wealth from their houses to retire on had might as well just take it out of the pocket of the ftb's of today.

Politicians often have a vested interest in the housing market. A lot have second and third homes which they can make a tidy sum from. Why would they want to do anything that would adversly affect the housing market?

I believe it will all go horribly wrong. I feel for the families who have just bought, but hope BTL brigade get burned and they will have no one to blame but themselves.

The UK economy is now based on debt - much of it secured against an asset with an arbitrary value - property. The way young people have been priced out of the market by Buy to Let investors is disgusting.
Buy to Let investors can leverage the equity in their existing properties and, due to the incredibly lax and risky lending policies of the banks, can afford property whereas young people have to try to save a deposit.
Given that young people also have university debts to pay off - what chance do they have? What chance of ever funding a pension too?

The argument that we need a big Buy-to-Let rented sector to encourage mobility is specious. Do you want to have to keep uprooting your family to follow a job and live in rented accommodation to boot?

So, here we are, 10 years on and debt in this country has doubled to over 1.2 trillion and the revenue taken by the exchequer has also doubled. And Gordon Brown has been a prudent chancellor! I'd hate to think the mess we'd be in if we'd had a spendthrift.

I think it matters not. Inequality has very visibly risen during the past decade, reports today from the CML shows over 60% of first time buyers rely on a substantial deposit gifts from parents. First time buyer numbers also happen to be at an historically low level. It seems a new class system has been established in the UK based on property assest values. There has been a swing away from meritocracy and social equality of opportunity in respect of housing, perhaps many other areas of our society. In today's Britain, if you are born into humble beginings without a trust fund and parental assistance, the odds of you making your way in the world have become harder, the risks you need to take have become greater than ever before, except perhaps during the Victorian era. The rewards at the same time have potentially become greater at the if you are prepared to make those gambles. What this represents for social and economic stability, we will find out in due course.

Renting a property from parents born, by chance, during the post war baby boom generation will be the only route to secure shelter for many, this in turn subsidises the children of our new multi-property owning elite, pushing the market ever further out of reach for the rest. All this from a labour government. Social and economic inequality shows little scope to abate, given the deomgraphic voting power of the majority of property owners in our ageing population.

The current, younger generations face more hurdles than the previous few generations. Of little doubt taxes will need to rise as we live longer but at the same time, the pool of younger workers is falling. Those starting out now in the housing market can already be facing deep debt levels from the education system. Raising education costs for the young is far less contentious than forcing elderly people with assests to fund healthcare privately. Education is not an opion in modern Britain. In a globalised world, unskilled work is diminishing, particularly under an open door immigration policy that only firther places pressures on housing, work pay levels and taxation (to pay for increased healthcare, roads, policing, social security). For these reasons, I see this as a long term shift in the structure and nature of British society.

The UK economy is now based on debt - much of it secured against an asset with an arbitrary value - property. The way young people have been priced out of the market by Buy to Let investors is disgusting.
Buy to Let investors can leverage the equity in their existing properties and, due to the incredibly lax and risky lending policies of the banks, can afford property whereas young people have to try to save a deposit.
Given that young people also have university debts to pay off - what chance do they have? What chance of ever funding a pension too?

The argument that we need a big Buy-to-Let rented sector to encourage mobility is specious. Do you want to have to keep uprooting your family to follow a job and live in rented accommodation to boot?

So, here we are, 10 years on and debt in this country has doubled to over 1.2 trillion and the revenue taken by the exchequer has also doubled. And Gordon Brown has been a prudent chancellor! I'd hate to think the mess we'd be in if we'd had a spendthrift.

The Government should implement a land value tax - that is, a tax on the value of all land. This would burst the speculative bubble now floating, reduce urban sprawl and the blight of unimproved land, and compensate the community for the gains made through better infrastructure (schools, parks, transport etc) provided by the government/taxpayer. LVT would be hard to avoid, and could be used to reduce taxes that are regressive such as VAT or that are inefficient and distrusted such as council tax. LVT would be a factor in what people are prepared to pay for a house (and so would lower prices) and would mean that second homes carry a higher cost than at present. It is a tax that has been successfully introduced in other countries and in certain cities in the USA to the overall improvement of the local community.

The Government should implement a land value tax - that is, a tax on the value of all land. This would burst the speculative bubble now floating, reduce urban sprawl and the blight of unimproved land, and compensate the community for the gains made through better infrastructure (schools, parks, transport etc) provided by the government/taxpayer. LVT would be hard to avoid, and could be used to reduce taxes that are regressive such as VAT or that are inefficient and distrusted such as council tax. LVT would be a factor in what people are prepared to pay for a house (and so would lower prices) and would mean that second homes carry a higher cost than at present. It is a tax that has been successfully introduced in other countries and in certain cities in the USA to the overall improvement of the local community.

Gordon Brown has presided over this ridiculous boom in house prices. He has failed to ensure that lending practices are sound, has failed to provide enough affordable housing. it is no good providing more housing now, it should have been done years ago, before the problem developed. His failure to ensure that property speculators do not profit from the First time buyers misery is a national scandal.

House prices definitely need to come down - I feel the only people to have benefitted from these inflated house prices are estate agents (by their percentage commission) and people who have spare money to invest in property. We bought our first house in 1971 for 拢4,600 - however I am no better off financially - if I want to move I will have to pay for another house the same as I get for this. The only people who will benefit eventually are my children - even then their share of the proceeds will only pay for a deposit. My son still lives at home - he cannot afford to buy a house even though he is working full-time.

To allow a housing market crash would cause a repeat of the economic crash in 1989, ie it would bring back stop-go economics. The current proposal to introduce HIPs is economically crazy because it would add extra to house prices and be a drag on the market, as would the other housing policies in the pipeline (eg new metering requirements. Government thinking is illogical .

To allow a housing market crash would cause a repeat of the economic crash in 1989, ie it would bring back stop-go economics. The current proposal to introduce HIPs is economically crazy because it would add extra to house prices and be a drag on the market, as would the other housing policies in the pipeline (eg new metering requirements. Government thinking is illogical .

I live in an old mining town just out side of Rotherham and every house that comes up for sale is purchased to be let out. I was very lucky to hear that the house I now own was up for sale and tbe owner wanted a quick sale. I was the 1st to view, we agreed on the price and the deal was done. Every house that I'd put an offer on before that went to someone else, in 1 case for 拢10k more than the house was valued at. Instead of a crash in house prices, why not fix the maximum rental, as suggested by J Taylor, and also charge the owners a property tax on each premises they own which is payable to the local government for re-investment in that area.

We need a house market crash, prices can't keep rising. I also hear people say that house prices will plateau (yeah right) until wages catch up but at the current level of inflation it'll take decades.

Gordon Brown has royally shafted this country of ours, what does he care - he's Scottish!

If house prices crash then banks will ask for larger deposits (based upon how far they think prices will go down). Until things bottom out, anyone will less than a big deposit (say 30%) won't be able to get a mortgage. No first time buyers will mean positive feedback and a much deeper reduction in prices than many expect

I graduated in '96 and have basically chased the housing market the whole way up, never being able to afford to buy a home. Now I'm 33, earning 拢40k, and STILL can't afford to buy. If I wasn't so depressed and withdrawn by it I'd be displaying my latent anger in pretty uncivilised ways!

It's irresponsible generational robbery, and it applies to previously-free education, job security, and pensions - as well as housing.

I think the area to address is the minimum wage rather than creating a house price crash.

If a crash occurs then a lot of people suffer financially. If you bring up the minimum wage it will shrink the ever growing gap between the rich and the poor. Problem solved without making those that have already struggled against all odds to gain property suffer.

I think there is certainly going to be a housing market crash in the near future, solely because it makes me sick to hear politicians saying they are creating houses for young first time buyers, providing they are in work.

What about single people in their late 50s-early 60s that have been labourers all their lives, on very low income or unemployed for what ever reason. And heaven forbid been ill for the last ten years of their lives. Take my last 6 years, i am now 58, i have had 3 heart attacks, 1 triple heart bypass, 1 hernia and a brain tumour removal.

What are the chances of people like me retraining and getting work at this late stage.

I think there is certainly going to be a housing market crash in the near future, solely because it makes me sick to hear politicians saying they are creating houses for young first time buyers, providing they are in work.

What about single people in their late 50s-early 60s that have been labourers all their lives, on very low income or unemployed for what ever reason. And heaven forbid been ill for the last ten years of their lives. Take my last 6 years, i am now 58, i have had 3 heart attacks, 1 triple heart bypass, 1 hernia and a brain tumour removal.

What are the chances of people like me retraining and getting work at this late stage.

Gordon promised to prevent HPI from getting out of control, he even had Japan as an example of extreme price inflation and the bust that ensued resulting in a lost generation, the real irony is that the UK boom has been fuelled by cheap Japanese interest rates.

The only conclusion I can come to is that he is either a liar, incompetent or both.

A price crash will cause a recession because the reduction in householders' net worth will cause them to save more and spend less. A recession will do more harm than the harm caused by expensive houses. The solution is to increase the supply of houses in a controlled way so as to curtail further price increases. The growth of houshold incomes will then reduce the affordability of houses in time.

Labour, on coming into office, continued with Tory polices. It would have been easy to finance council housing once more - more houses means less house price inflation. An alternative approach is to squeeze the less fortunate out of the market, which he has done.

How are the people of Britain meant to raise families when they can't even afford a roof over their heads ? Talk about destroying the fabric of society for capital gains. YES, OF COURSE WE NEED A CRASH !! I think its an absolute disgrace that the councils give planning permission to massive superstores that destroy local business, when the land should be used for housing. Who wants to live in a flat thats beyond the reach of most that have no dining room let alone a garden ?

We need a crash.
Without it we will face a future where housing costs:

- make pension provision impossible, exacerbating an already dire situation.
- put upwards pressure on wages, even as India, China and others flood the global labour market with cheap workers.
- act as a drag on the economy as mortgage servicing costs eat up more and more income.
- cause investment in productive areas to be diverted to the housing market, damaging our productivity.

The above address the deleterious effects on the economy. Individuals are faced with their own problems, of course.

If we had a sensible rental market, as found in continental Europe, then many of the worst effects of the current bubble would be mitigated. Unfortunately the assured shorthold tenancy provides little security of tenure and without laws providing this, more and more will be condemned to a rootless existence, with concomitent detrimental effects on family life. For example, children may have to change school simply because a landlord decides not to renwe a tenancy. AST *MUST* be scrapped and replaced with law that guarantees security of tenure if the current trends in the housing markets continue.

My wife and I have done brilliantly out of the boom, but it's of little consequence since we're only going out of our house feet-first. So we fervently hope for a huge slump so that the children, in their twenties, can get on the ladder.

Speaking as someone living in a cramped 2 bed flat with 2 children, I feel very sad that a whole generation has been doomed to bring up their children in flats.

My husband and I both have good, well-paid jobs, but since we bought this flat, thousands more have been built in this area, meaning that flat prices have not kept pace with houses.

We have been trying to move onto a house for about 5 years, and now I have given up. I feel very angry that previous generations who had an opportunity to buy their homes are now opposing the building of new homes for the next generation.

There is so much land in this country, and sensitive development need not be an eyesore - unlike the often bleak and barren housing developments that people hate. I find it mind-boggling that every tiny urban space is being crammed with flats, while all the green space is being preserved.

Yes - we need a housing crash because it would teach us a lesson about greed and selfishness. It would also allow those who have been crowded out of the market for so long to get another chance of owning their place.

It has never been easy to get on the housing ladder, i got married in 1966 and we struggled for 7 years to afford a mortgage. I remember the then GLC used to loan mortgages to first time buyers only because it was so difficult. The years allocation of money used to go within a couple of months. Building society managers were like little Hitlers, I remember one asking me my personal details, earnings etc.,over the counter in front of a dozen customers. I worked with a chap who bought a lock-up garage just to get on the ladder. It all depends on what you earn, the low waged will always struggle to buy anything and the high earners will struggle to buy as big as they want.

We need a crash.
Without it we will face a future where housing costs:

- make pension provision impossible, exacerbating an already dire situation.
- put upwards pressure on wages, even as India, China and others flood the global labour market with cheap workers.
- act as a drag on the economy as mortgage servicing costs eat up more and more income.
- cause investment in productive areas to be diverted to the housing market, damaging our productivity.

The above address the deleterious effects on the economy. Individuals are faced with their own problems, of course.

If we had a sensible rental market, as found in continental Europe, then many of the worst effects of the current bubble would be mitigated. Unfortunately the assured shorthold tenancy provides little security of tenure and without laws providing this, more and more will be condemned to a rootless existence, with concomitent detrimental effects on family life. For example, children may have to change school simply because a landlord decides not to renwe a tenancy. AST *MUST* be scrapped and replaced with law that guarantees security of tenure if the current trends in the housing markets continue.

My wife and I are both Lecturers at one of London's reknown universities. Our joint earning - while not nearly as good as in Industry - should allow us to live comfortably in London, one would hope. The banks are happy to give us a mortgage that in today's London buys us a 1 bedroom room flat. We are expecting a child, and for a family that is definitely too small. We are hence forced to rent.

For us Academics the London housing market is unsustainable at this point in time. At this level we will most certainly leave the country in a few years - not because we don't like it here but because of the living conditions and what they cost.

It is sad that we - who contribute to the education of "the best" in this country - cannot even as a couple get our foot onto the housing ladder. While we are happy to live outside the centre, the disastrous transport system makes this almost impossible. We'd be forced to spend at least 2-3 hours per day commuting, which is something you can't do both if you have a child.

While I understand the logic of the free economics behind this and don't propose government control of the housing market, something needs to be done to discourage the huge amounts of profit that are being made by those who buy, renovate and resell without ever intending to live there. The artificial price inflation has to be stopped somehow. The houses are never worth what they cost, their building quality is sub-standard.

While London is wonderful to live in, I don't see why it should cost so much more here than in other world cities which have a far better quality of life to offer.

Something needs to be done urgently before essential workers, nurses, educators, etc. are forced to leave the town.

Scrap "no limits" immigration!!

I notice that second home owners are pushing property prices beyond the reaches of young people in the locality, who are forced to leave.
Some places become ghost towns in winter. However, the Channel Islands and the Isle of man put controls on who buys property, with priority for essential workers over second home owners, so a similar policy in the UK would be worth considering.

the main political parties think shared ownership is the solution to help FTBs, all it will do is help drive prices artificially higher, while adding to the burden on the tax payer, why do they insist it's a viable option?

We have recently purchased our first house and though i agree house prices are quite high we have managed to buy a 3 bed room semi detached with a garage and can afford it one salary of 45 k! we actually have 2 salaries currently but wanted to be able to afford it on one

How? By working hard to get together a decent deposit. I am pretty worried now that a crash will come and all our effort will be for nothing but i have to remeber at the end of the days its a home and not an investment. And if a crash does come, then its generally bad news for everyone as the economy falters and people lose their jobs.

Every body thinks if your house goes up in value you are richer. For the vast majority of people they are actually poorer. As with most people if your a FTB or plan to move two or three times in your life to accomodate family growing up, as house prices rise, the rungs on the ladder are further apart, so in the end you become stuck where you are. House price inflation is as bad as any other type of inflation, it erodes your earnings so you become poorer. The UK needs a crash to help the majority, even if they don't see that it does.

I have been priced out by people speculating on property. Of course, no one wants their property to drop in value, but to speculate on the places where people have to live is vulgar, and it's got totally out of control.

Curb BTL now.

i am a 24 year old post graduate,who is still waiting to move out of my parents house, because i like many of my freinds(12 to be precise) cannot get a mortgage for even a decent property in a remotely safe and clean area

promised by the labour government that student loans are realistic and that graduates when they eventually graduate will be earning far more money, making a graduate studnet loan very easy to pay..now i have a large student loan of 14 000 as well as a mediocre wage as a graduate and cannot even afford a house at this point. with the commitment of the studnet loan i would only get 76,000 on my current wage, which is 4 times my salary...when the average house price is 165,000 where will i find a house within my budget?

moving onto the property ladder is impossible.

if the prices continue to rise i will undoubtebly be at my parents house for another 5-10 years

what is labour going to do!

If the price of food, energy and clothing increase (the most basic of our needs - as is shelter) this is considered a bad thing. If house prices rise, the media praise this as a good thing. 主播大秀owners only benifit if they never intend to move up the 'ladder'. The general (mostly homeowning) public cannot see that it is as bad for society as with any other types of increase. The most amusing part for me is that a young couple are given a 'feel good' factor by rising prices even though they will then pay more to take their next step up the ladder. Talk about brain washed!! Unfortunately its too late to go back, whether prices crash or not, great suffering will result from this government/BOE policy of increasing house prices to stimulate debt growth (consumer and government spending) and tax revenues. This is insane! The few that do well out of this try to convince the masses of the positives, knowing full well that they will be able to insulate themselves from the greater negatives. For bad things to happen the good man only needs to do nothing. Most of today poplulation are too drunk/obsessed with football, soap operas, x-factor/or self obsessed to care. We will all care when when our children are starving/afraid to go to school/hooked on drugs/in prison.

My view is that a crash is around the corner.

Historically low interest rates globally have produced a liquidity boom and the UK is at the epicentre of it. More people are more indebted than at any time in history in this country and with inflationary pressure growing by the day (todays food and factory gate price news for example) interest rates should continue to rise. This will push more and more people over the edge financially.

The speculators who have caused this can burn, it's greed money chasing an easy profit. I will however feel sorry for those at the bottom of the ladder who have chosen to bust a gut to buy a property to live in as a home.

Seasoned investors aren't buying nowadays due to the yield on offer. The market has been driven up by amateur investors hoping for capital gains rather than return and they are likely to get their fingers burnt.

Meanwhile i'm happy saving away and paying rent that is 2/3'rds of an interest only mortgage while i wait.

I think everyone would benefit from a house price crash unless they have been greedy and MEW'd for a new car or holiday or have several houses. The sooner it happens the better.... what was it Gordon said? No more boom and bust?

Which is better ?

Paying 拢 100,000 for a house with interest rates at 10% or 拢 200,000 for a house with interest rates at 5%.

The banks would have you believe that there is no difference and indeed on day one this is true. But that ignores inflation which makes a great deal of difference.

If we assume inflation for the first example at 7% your salary doubles roughly once every 10 years or put it another way your repayments effectively halve.

But if inflation were only half that it would take twenty years for your repayments to halve.

Still think that they are the same ? Of course not, yet this calculation is never factored in and the legacy of this is people paying much more for much longer even though on day one the repayments are apparently the same.

Find some way of legislating so that the banks are obliged to inform us of simple calculations such as this and the bubble will deflate as quickly as the hot air which inflated it disperses !!!

How can anyone afford a house without resorting to lies and spin?

If the average salary is about 20K and the average house is about 200K the true income multiple is 10x.

That is not serviceable.

I personally think that a severe correction in prices is long overdue, and I personally will not be buying a property until this happens. In most places it is actually cheaper to rent than to buy a property of equivalent value. This bubble is due to burst pretty soon, but Gordon will try to make sure it doesn't happen on his watch, and leave it to the next poor soul who will end up taking the flak.

Well, we certainly need house prices to come down (whether you call it a "crash" or not).

Unaffordable housing is causing much damage to our society, and it's the young who are paying the price.

Unfortunately, our government don't seem to see this, or maybe just don't care.

Why are landlords allowed to discriminated on age? a number of properties my wife & and I have looked at say "no children", in effect I now need a landlords permission to have a baby!!!

Buying is not an option, while we could afford a small mortgage both of us would have to work full time to pay it, we have a choice: rent & babies or buy and no children.

We are both on above average salary, but it's not enough due to the state of the housing market.

I can honestly say that following the last crash I was able to access the market but due to other circumstances having to move for work etc I have a high mortgage and even though the bank of England are at arms length? from the government, interest rates are still climbing in an effort to satisfy GBs targets but I suspect only to cover up the massive extent of over borrowing which u=is fuelling the economy and setting a bad example to the rest of the country .The chancellor has set the agenda so who is really in control well my guess is not the electorate but one man and he is certainly not within the bank of England

Yes, bring it on. The sooner the better

The housing market as it now stands is beyond insanity, ultimately little is needed to tip it over, it is now a bubble of such overinflated proportions that it is well capable of collapsing under it鈥檚 own weight, and when the crash comes it is going to be long, drawn out and painful for those who have mortgaged themselves to the hilt.

This madness has been aided and abetted by a complacent Bank of England and a Chancellor well aware that it is only ludicrous borrowing-much of it by people punch drunk on the supposed value of their home-that is maintaining consumer spending, and, together with his own generosity with tax payers鈥� money, keeping the economy ticking over.

A house price crash is not just required to allow us to get on the housing ladder and provide security in our old age, it's also needed to secure the talent that will otherwise leave this country in droves to find a better life elsewhere.

Moving to Germany at the end of the year is currently my favourite option. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

I can honestly say that following the last crash I was able to access the market but due to other circumstances having to move for work etc I have a high mortgage and even though the bank of England are at arms length? from the government, interest rates are still climbing in an effort to satisfy GBs targets but I suspect only to cover up the massive extent of over borrowing which u=is fuelling the economy and setting a bad example to the rest of the country .The chancellor has set the agenda so who is really in control well my guess is not the electorate but one man and he is certainly not within the bank of England

A house price crash is the only
way to bring back normality to this country.. and the sooner the better.

Endless house price inflation helped by the:
Government,media, banks (loose lending) means that a large chunk of our economy is running on thin air.(Money growing on houses)

Its only a matter of time for ANOTHER crash, just like the past.

Why should we have a crash, I'm having to rent, i'm young have a good job. This is what we call free market economy, this gov spends a lot of time and a lot of money to control what we do, so why give it more control over this as well. A market crash will not be bad for the housing YES it will bring down prices, but i think it will put the counrty into a bad spirral, which could lead to REAL problems for the normal hard working people, jobs will go, credit will be squeezed etc etc. No i think let the market sort it self out, and it always does in the end.....

There needs to be a price crash. The only people who benefit from high house prices are banks, building societies, and estate agents, the bigger the mortgage the more interest you pay, and if you fail to pay they will auction your home for peanuts and you still owe them the balance of the debt. Estate agents work on a percentage, so the higher the price the bigger their profit.
The only way I could get back on the house owning ladder, after a divorce, was with shared ownership, so I have the worse of both worlds, I pay ever increasing mortgage payments as interest rates go up, higher rent payments as they increase annualy, and all of the maintence costs of my house. I bought 60% and now cannot afford to buy the remaining 40% as house prices have risen faster than my salary. Shared ownership is not an answer to the problem.

we need a house price crash like we need a hole in the head. People live in houses and when they go up in price it is good for those people. They become richer. Is that a crime today? I have been able to withdraw 拢55,000 in equity from my house and have a lovely car and have been on holidays because of this - rising house prices. I want prices to keep rising so that I can get more equity out.

Classic intro to Gavin Esler's email alert this evening.

Very amusing!

I live in Brighton where the average wage is something like twenty three thousand pounds. I recently sold my unexceptional semi detached house in town for close to three quarters of a million pounds. I'm lucky, I have made a fortune from just owning a house for 15 years, certainly much more than I have been able to save, or the value of any pensions that I have. But how can an ordinary house like this be affordable to the next generation ?

The value is out of all proportion both to the means of those who should be able to buy it, and its intrinsic value - to build it from scratch would cost less tha a third of what it sold for.

Do the government intend to do anything about the vast number of BTL owners who have fraudulently obtained a mortgage by taking out an owner occupier mortgage?

A house price crash will occur regardless of people's views - debt must be cleared out of the economy - unprecedented economic expansion will be followed by unprecedented economic contraction. Much has been out of the control of government (cut in US rates, yen carry trade, deflation form china). However, the government has made policy blunders which have supported the credit bubble - manipulating RPI/CPI, influence over who is elected to the cental bank and yet claiming it is independent, destroying pensions thus promoting property speculation (BTL), not taxing second homes thus promoting BTL, not promoting savings (domestic imbalances including a current account deficit), allowing real wages of public sector workers to fall in real terms (this will come back to haunt them), allowing the remit of the MPC not to consider asset bubbles and money supply growth. Inflation is heading way above 6% - be prepared for debt to be cleared out of the economy via a deep recession. The government is in part responsible!

1.The only people benefiting from over inflated prices are Banks the Government and Estate Agents.

2.Who really wants to owe 拢250,000 plus? I don't want people to be in negative equity but this can't go on.

3.It's about time first time buyers said enough is enough if they all refused to buy maybe that would help bring prices down.

4.I believe one problem is this common opinion that prices always go up!

5.I am considering leaving the country to live somewhere more affordable. My partner and I earn 70k but we refuse to saddle ourselves with debt for a dump when renting is nearly half the cost of buying!

6. I think that a price correction would be good for the majority, but I think that Gordon Brown will avoid this at all costs. The Labour government, the opposition and the banks have too many interests in property to let it crash. Shame on them, all they are supposed to be working for the people not themselves.

I believe that it is no longer a question of whether there will be a crash, but rather when it will occur. Ever-increasing property values are not possible to maintain.

The point is this: if you can rent a decent place for less than the interest payments on a mortgage for an equaivalent place, and annual house price growth is falling to less than ~6-7%, there is no financial incentive to buy. Wait for the inevitable correction.

I earn 31k GBP per year, and could probably *just* about afford to get onto the ladder by mortgaging myself to the eye-balls buying a property in a much worse location and state than that which I currently rent for a fraction of what the monthly mortgage costs would be. Put simply - I'd be absolutely daft to buy. Especially given there appears to be absolutely no capital appreciateion left in the market in my area. I'm better off putting away my savings every month in an ISA with 7% interest. Given the other comments on this page, there are even more people in a similar position than I realised.

The ratio of average property price to average earnings in the UK is now higher than it has ever been. Based on this, it is estimated that UK property prices are over-valued by approximately 50%. Another worrying trend is that rental costs have kept pace with earnings, and in many areas are actually cheaper in real terms than they were a few years ago (e.g. here in Leeds) due to an oversupply of lettings from over-eager buy-to-letters. This indicates the inflating property market is not driven by supply/demand, but more by greed, capital investment and hype.

This report by ABN Amro gives an excellent summary of the vulnerability of the current UK market:

"A house is for nesting, not for investing."

The housing situation in this country is atrocious.

- People are using houses as pension funds, which is pricing out generations of people. This is not good for society as a whole.

- Amateur BTL'ers are not declaring their properties as rented accommodation, thus commiting tax fraud. The govenment does nothing about this.

- People born after 1970 or those who do not earn huge salaries presently do not stand a hope of ever owning their own home.

- The social impact of the current situation will hurt this country in years to come.

Until a government introduces laws of taxation on 2nd/3rd homes, and chases the unpaid tax on those currently not declaring their income on rented property, the only way to solve this unequal, Victorian situation is a HPC.

The land value content in all house sales is far too high a percentage at between about 50% & 70% of the total value. This benefits land owners, the wealthy and the powerful including the Government. Too much land in the UK is still owned by too few. This is unacceptable. It is time that this was altered to release more land to the majority. This would stabilize house prices at a lower more affordable level, create more affordable housing stock and provide a boost to the economy as a whole.

While this state of affairs exists land scarcity for housing will maintain high land prices and simply fuel higher house prices.

We ought to take a leaf out of Irelands book they have managed to achieve this.

A few questions...
What excuse will Gordon Brown give for failing to stop house prices spiraling out of control? Why will he not impose serious tax levys on Landlords buying up considerable amounts of property to rent? Why will he not tax owners of second, third, fourth homes and so on? Why not introduce a seperate interest rate measure for housing market, one which does not effect the wider UK economy meaning house prices can be controlled without having a detrimental effect on UK business environment?

Could you ask each person on your panel if they would like to disclose how many buy to let properties or investment properties they own.

Also can you ask the panel if they have equity out of their property or have a second / third home.

Any answers the panel give without viewers knowing their personal circumstances will be fairly worthless.

Common sense says that there should be a house price crash, and maybe interest rates should be increased to encourage a stalling of house prices.

THE TRUTH IS: when house prices are increasing, it creates a `feel good factor' for the electorate! Therefore there is no incentive for the government to do anything.

Of course 2nd home owners and parents giving children large amounts of capital to put into the over inflated housing market don't help.

A a"HOUSING MARKET CRASH" IS MOST CERTAINLY A SOBERING THOUGHT. IN LIGHT OF THE CURRENT ECONOMY AND ITS RELIANCE ON PROPERTY AS A LARGE PART OF THE ECONOMY, HERE AND IN THE U.S., A CRASH COULD HAVE DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES...AND HAS RESULTED IN THOUSANDS OF HOMES BEING SIEZED FOR BACK PAYMENT OF THE MORTGAGE. I BELIEVE A A"CRASH" WOULD WIPE OUT A NUMBER OF PEOPLE FINANCIALLY, AND WOULD CERTAINLY AFFECT THE ECONOMY ADVERSELY. IN ESSENCE MY ANSWER IS "NO, WE DO NOT NEED A HOUSING CRASH."

PAUL W. GIRARD,
CONCORD, CA

Have I done well out the housing boom? Well yes, my housing association flat in London shot up in price. But what good was that to me? So did every other property in the area, and moving up in size by even one extra room was soon way out of my reach. So now I've moved out of London altogether and am very unlikely to ever be able to move back. I feel realy sorry for those who didn't get a chance to get on the ladder in the first place. Promising that house prices would not get out of control was irresponsible. Savers and pensioners have lost out too, including my own father who saw his retirement lump sum stagnate at below inflation returns for five years. So have people who live in popular second-home locations and can't get a property in the towns they grew up in. The only people who have benefited are property developers and those who are so rich they can afford an over-inflated second home. London - and the rest of the UK - needs a mix of people doing different jobs to keep the economy going, not all of which pay a lot. And we all need somewhere to live.

Yes, We need a house price crash and yes, we'll get one once interest rates are raised to their correct level.
The last time inflation was this high interest rates were 8%.
The current silly house prices are simply a consequence of years of post 9/11 'accommodative' interest rates.
These are now coming to an end.

I was lucky enough to buy in 1997 so on paper am much better off. Of course I'm not, because the next house I will want to move to will have gone up just as much as my own. I personally think that I should have to pay some form of capital gains tax on the increase in value of my property - it has after all earned more money than I have in the last ten years and I had to pay income tax on my earnings.

This might sound like turkeys voting for christmas, but had the tax been there the increase would have been kept to a sensible level and others would be able to get on the housing ladder still.

I think we need a crash to create some balance in society.

As an anecdote - my ex-partner had a child from a previous relationship and was thus given a home.

She didn't wish to contribute in the relationship regarding working and paying for a home as what we could have afforded was 'worse than what she had' - her words - for not working.

This I have no issues with, yet as a worker I find that I am not allowed the chance to have my own house, that I do have issues with.

I don't feel it is right that many should have to suffer the inconvenience of not owning my own home because of economic policy.

So, get those interest rates up to 10%, tax the BTL industry properly and offer any first time buyer 10% down payment contributed by the govt.

Just for a start...

The situation is far worse than most actually think. In todays society younger people are encouraged to go to university. Doing this can now cost as much as 拢3000 per year for tuition fees alone. A similar amount is then required for the student to actually rent accommodation and buy food. Call this about 拢5000 for 3 years which totals a minimum of 拢15000 debt on leaving. Students not always being the most prudent of people often accumulate further debt during this time. Soon it will be common place for students to leave with debts in the region of 拢25,000. Now onto all this they are expected to join the housing market where even at the lower end of the market you can easily face a cost of 拢100,000. Alongside this we have increasing interests rate which only compound these loans.

All this comes to only one of three options

(1) The UK becomes a nation of renters with most never owning there own houses until they eventually inherit from there parents.

(2) A crash occurs and those who played the housing market are financially wiped out whilst those who couldn't buy now can.

(3) The ever increasing cost of living drives young people out of the UK and into foreign countries where the cost of living is far less.

I am currently 26 and see option (3) as the best bet. I am left with the opinion that sucessive generations and governments have cared only for there own well being and how much money they can accumulate. Having given little to no thought of the price that the generations that follow them will have to pay. I can only say from all this that I am part of a generation which owes neither my country or my elders any gratitude or loyalty. I encourage all who can to leave because this country is simply not worth the cost we each pay every day simply to live in it.

YES. The UK does need a house price correction for the following reasons:
1. There is an UNDENIABLE gap in wealth between under 35s and over 55s and it's GETTING WIDER.
2. Young people are leaving this country because they can't afford to buy a house.
3. British couples are putting off having children because they can't afford to buy a house.
I'm a young person and I feel completely alienated by home owners. I feel like a medieval SERF and they're the landed GENTRY. This is not democracy - this is slavery. It's time for a revolution.

I am 31 and I have a very decently paid job. However, I have no chance of getting anything more than a tiny one-bedroom flat, and to do even that would involve relocating an hour or more from where I work.

I am not what the government would define as a key worker so there seems no chance of help from the government. My parent's are not well-off so there is no chance of help from them. My only chance is for houseprices to fall substantially. Even removal of stamp duty would not help significantly.

It does seem very unfair that there is a sizable group of people who have several properties when my generation simply cannot buy without help from our parents. In this country at least home ownership is a key right of passage and something that has been achievable for previous generations. Is it right that we should be denied the seemingly modest aspiration of owning a home that so many before us have been able to achieve?

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing is that rising house prices do NOT even help mmost homeowners, as people generally wish to trade up when they move. So even people on the housing ladder are having to fund an ever increasing gap between the rungs of the ladder. I feel I can wait perhaps 5 years for things to improve. If not, as reluctant as I am, I will move abroad. I do not wish to be renting for the rest of my life thanks simply due to the bad luck of reaching this stage of my life at the same time as an extended and seemingly endless property bubble.

The central question is: can an asset bubble ever be good for the economy.

Of course the answer is No - the economy has been transformed into one driven by debt, how can this be good? Households are burdened with record levels of debt, and this has mostly been achieved by borrowing against the apparent 'value' of property. This debt culture has spread to every facet of life. We have NHS hospitals, state schools, and scientific laboratories, all labouring under huge PFI contract re-payments. The new private equity boom is primarily aimed at loading the target company with debt to pay for forced expansion (and bonuses for the select few). If UK plc were a company then the creditors would have been knocking at the door a long time ago.

Why should we have a crash, I'm having to rent, i'm young have a good job. This is what we call free market economy, this gov spends a lot of time and a lot of money to control what we do, so why give it more control over this as well. A market crash will not be bad for the housing YES it will bring down prices, but i think it will put the counrty into a bad spirral, which could lead to REAL problems for the normal hard working people, jobs will go, credit will be squeezed etc etc. No i think let the market sort it self out, and it always does in the end.....

A house price crash would be painful for many but would be necessary to redress the great imbalances that have arisen in the last decade. It would allow malinvestments of the nation's resources to be corrected. Also the energy of the people would be allowed to be channeled more productively instead of just being used to pay interest to the banks. In short, a house price crash would be like lancing a boil. We will all be better off in the long run.

Best,
L

The economics of home ownership has become so revoltingly disoriented that a house price crash is needed to resotre parity.

Does anyone get the irony of this situation? Usually it's the good times that everyone looks forward to, now it's the bad... the economic boom have benefited the few at the expense of everyone else.

You know, I'm sick to death of listening to people say "it's always been hard to get on the ladder, you'll just have to save more / work harder / lower expectations" (delete as applicable)

Do these people live in cloud cuckoo land? When my father was my age he was earning a good salary and managed to support a wife and two children at the same time as buying a four bedroom detatched house on a single salary.

I'm close to my peak earning potential, have bachelor, masters, and doctorate degrees, have worked very hard, and earn close to three times the national average salary. My reward for this hard work is to be able to afford a two bedroom flat in a not so nice area of west london.

Has it always been hard? Maybe...

Do we need a crash? Damn right we do!

In reply to post 121. If they were to raise the minimum wage then salary multiples would go up. This would help to raise house prices thus putting home owning out of reach again.

If we have a crash those that have purchased recently will face hardship. If we don't have a crash those trying to purchase a property will face continued hardship.

No one wins, this mess is due to the government not even attempting to control house price inflation.

Shared ownership schemes are certainly not the answer as this just adds to further house price inflation.

Yes, a house price readjustment is needed, not spurious schemes to attract even more people onto the property ladder.

The house price inflation problem seems to be driven, amongst other things, by ridiculous mortgage multiples and by "buy to letters (BTLers)" hoping for quick capital gains and, possibly, good returns on rental income. Maybe not even the latter - the desire for quick bucks seems to be driving BTLers to buy just for capital gains - if one takes reports in the press seriously - eg. of blocks of new build flats staying part-empty with no attempt to rent out (so as not to mess-up the decor!)- one presumes in the hope of maximising capital gains.

The underlying issue is perhaps more difficult to address - the psychological one of the superiority of owning versus renting. Why is it so imperative (and been central to government policy)that we own our own homes? Renters are seen as the poor relation, unlike in many European countries, where renting is the norm. We seem, in the UK, to be driven by wanting to own homes, to the point where it is an obsession. Is this a legacy of the Thatcher years? Why do people take out mortgages which cost them far more in interest alone than it would cost them in rent for a similar or better property? (One presumes because they believe in the continued capital gains in property..). Rent is seen as "dead money" whereas interest payments are not viewed in the same way.

The pressing need in my view is to think about how best to ensure a good supply of homes for people, NOT how to make sure people can buy homes. We need some sort of awareness raising on the whole economics of housing. Don't provide further incentives to encourage people onto the housing ladder - this will continue to fuel the house price inflation we are currently seeing (and, by the way, why is this a good thing (other than for speculators and mortgage lenders))?. Review the laws on tenancy and renting, to provide more long term security in rental property. And, even, what about considering (intake of breath!) capital gains on disposal of primary residencies.

The sooner the housing market crashes the better. Prices have reach a level where home owners have saddled themselves with life long debt and increased their risk of bankruptcy in later life. In effect it has created a borrowing frency which the UK will be paying for in terms of lower growth for years to come.

A crash is inevitable as the average income is still 拢24k x2 income for a couple = 48k x3 (long term wage loan borrowing) = 134k not 拢210k (Current UK average). Bottomline UK housing is overvalued by about 60%., not to mention the mortgage equity withdrawal on many carrying an interest only loan.

Recently was part of the management team of a successful UK biotech company that was acquired for in excess of 拢30 million pounds. My windfall after a 25 year science career where renting was my only option was about 拢90k after tax. This would not buy a one bedroom studio in southern UK. 拢90k in 1997 would buy a substantial house. Does my great success by any standard in the UK "Knowledge Based" economy compete with housing speculation of 10% APR over a decade. No it does not, we all know something is fundamentally wrong.

The government of power has been virtualy silent on the housing price issue, partly since the treasury has benefited greatly, now regional services cannot support the housing of key workers. 300,000 second homes require DOUBLE COUNCIL TAX. But if a substantial number sellup or downsize the market collapses.

It is healthy to have a mix of owner-occupied and rented property. The unhealthy position would be to have no rented property or only rented property.

So far we've seen a great many comments from people who appear to believe they have a right to own property in this country.

Why?

We all have a right to a home, but not to home ownership.

There's no shame in renting. To those who say rent is "money down the drain", I say, what about interest, stamp duty and the other unavoidable costs of buying, selling and owning property? Do homeowners really get the better deal?

Let's break this destructive cycle of despair by building a proud-to-rent culture and putting pressure on the government to encourage the provision of affordable RENTED housing.

That way, hopefully, prices will stabilise and, as a community, we'll end up better off.

I hate to think of the misery that a house price crash will cause but rampant house price inflation has caused its own misery for (a) the people who can't get on the ladder, (b) those struggling to pay 5-6 x salary mortgages and terrified at the thought of the tiniest interest rate rise (c) and Britain's savers who are being ripped off by artificially low interest rates.
Things should never have been allowed to get to this point and yet all along we've had various vested interests talking in the media about house prices going up as a Good Thing and calling for interest rate cuts every time the annual increase looks like slowing down to single figures.
The government promised to prevent rampant house price inflation and should be called to account for their utter failure. If the rest of us did our jobs as badly as they did we'd be out on our ears. Whatever happens, a lot of people are going to suffer for a very long time as a result of the low interest rates and slack credit standards that have prevailed, while a minority, particularly the reckless and greedy, have profited.

Two of my three daughters have been priced out of the housing market and, if rental prices continue to rise will soon be priced out of the rental market too. Both have good jobs but yet cannot afford to even consider buying their own homes. What the government needs to put a stop to is second homes and the ease with which people can get mortgages, especially buy-to-let. These are two factors which push up the costs of home ownership. And please lets not think anyone really gains in this situation as unless you are 'downsizing' though your home is worth more now than last year so is the property you are buying. We need more affordable homes for first-time buyers and less greed by those who are already on the ladder.

The problem with house prices at present is that 99% of the population seem to think that because they are high that this is a good thing, inflation of this magnitude be it in houses or food is bad full stop.

The sooner people relise this and understand that the only winners out of this madness are the banks and financial institutions the sooner prices will fall to more sane levels.

From what i can see the slide in asset prices globally will be the start of a series of changes to the way money/credit is created, a combination of lax lending policies and inflated money supply are a key causes of todays problems.

Also the measure of inflation unfortunately hasn't really reflected the true cost of living for a number of years, if it had then interest rates would have been much higher and house prices would have remained more in line with earnings.

For all those people who are geared up to the hilt, the next few years are going to be painfull.

One question.

Why don't the government review the Assured Shorthold Tenancy (yes I knoe the Tories brought it in in 1988)legislation, or better still, scrap it all together? People and young families need stability and having to move home on the whim of a BTL landlord on a months notice is simply not on.

Other countries in the EU manage to have far better tenancy agreements that give the tenant a bit more security of tenure. Why not the UK?

That would be part way of ridding the UK's unhealthy obsession with home-ownership for sure.

Wrong question. Point is, Brown could argue in a free market economy that there is no such thing as prices rising "out of control" - prices follow the market, i.e. the money. So Brown will say he was right in 1997 and nothing has changed - he is still right. If we have a housing market crash, then the whole British economy goes for a burton - because it is now posited on the unsustainable, and the "lifestyle" that goes with it. On this small island, we now (more than ever) have to sustain the myth that we are more than we are, just to keep going at all. The house price phenomenon is part of that package. Take away that part, and the whole edifice comes crashing down. What we need is more social housing - except that eats into the myth, too. We all started this bandwagon rolling - whether or not we realized it at the time - and now we are all (and not just the housing market) either on the bandwagon or off it - if enough people fall off it, then the wheels might come off too. Not a pretty sight.

The housing market is being artificailly inflated by investors (i.e Buy-to-letters) who are outbidding their potential tenants to buy properties. They will accept a loss on the rental yield (because FTBs can only afford in rent what they could have paid in mortgage) providing the property appreciates enough to return a decent profit. However this price appreciation relies on ever more people choosing BTL as an investment strategy. It is therefore a pyramid which must crash as prices slow down with interest rate rises and the returns for BTL investors stop materialising.

I live in the Ribble Valley where prices have almost trebled in the last 8 years leaving myself and most of the other first time buyers priced out of the market. The real problem is that prices are so high, you need the strength of two wages in order to borrow enough money to get on the ladder. You can forget having a family, because both incomes are needed just to pay the basic bills.

I rent a semi detatched house that at its current market value, would cost more than double the rent per month to cover a repayment mortgage. My message to first time buyers like myself is DON'T BUY - RENT. Only when the prices drop back in line with earnings would I consider buying a house.

In August 2005, we were forced to sell our property because of living near "neighbours from hell" who made our lives a misery for five years (we stuck it out for three and it took two years to find a buyer).

Unable to find another property immediately, where we could be sure of peace, we rented and fell into a rental trap, whilst house prices have risen by 20%. I am retired with a pension that rises each year by less than (true) inflation.

We moved (rental) north in the hope of finding a cheaper property, to offset our equity loss, but the north east and south Scotland areas are no exception.

If there isn't a crash soon, we will be forced to rent forever.

To add insult to injury, if we eventually find a property to buy, we will be forced to pay Gordon Brown circa 拢9000.00 of stamp duty, for the privilege!

If, like me, you're a first-time buyer unwilling or unable to mortgage yourself up to the hilt to get on the property ladder, the best thing you can do is to carry on renting or living with your parents if you can put up with it (no, it's not ideal, but work with me here).

Simple economics dictates that a lack of demand will cause prices to fall - so if large numbers of FTBs stay away from the market for long enough, prices will have to fall as those who want to unlock the equity in their house, or those who want to trade up, will have no choice but to drop the price in order to be able to sell.

Part of the reason prices seem to be spiralling out of control is the expectation that house prices will continue to rise - it's a vicious circle. As long as people believe that the value of houses will rise, they will be prepared to pay increasingly high prices for them.

I also agree that those with second homes should be taxed heavily for the privilege. Shame on Labour for their abject failure to do anything about the growing gap between the UK's rich and poor.

First time buyers, let us unite and bring on the crash!

I don't know if there will be a crash but I do know that any market as out of control as UK housing always finds some way to correct itself. The simple facts are that house prices in real terms are desperately high. In the past such a distortion could be evened out with an acutely painful (but long term beneficial) period of price-wage spiralling inflation as in the early 70s. The difference this time is that globalised labour markets are depressing wages. I don't know how it will end but I do know that the longer it goes and the more distorted the market becomes, the more painful will be the unravelling. The other important point is that high real house prices benefit very few in society and actually are extremely socially divisive. New Labour's abject failure to do anything about this problem is, in my view, their greatest weakness.

Even if my husband earned 拢70k a year we still could not afford a house in our village - even the ex- council houses are valued at 拢300k+ with the average price at 拢500k
The council's shared ownership schemes are unimaginative and badly built. I fail to see how 拢900 per month for a 75% share in a box is affordable for young people.
People cannot afford to live and work locally therefore will have to travel further, presumably to the delight of the treasury who look set on charging us for the privelege.Our village will die and only be occupied by stockbrokers.
The Labour party has no workable social policy in place for its people, they are a disgrace and I ashamed that I voted them in.
We are all building a pyramid for the Pharaoh, no one really owns anything,
after all a mortgage is only a variable rental agreement with a bank

Why isn't house price inflation considered as part of CPI?
CPI is so far removed from actual inflation it is disgusting that the 'I' stands for inflation. That's what gets you into this mess.
Money supply = inflation, be it housing, stock market, champagne or ipods.
The crash will come when credit tightens. Credit tightens with CPI. Excessive inflation is caused by excessive money supply, i.e. low interest rates. With money supply increasing at 10pc per annum, inflation will follow, followed by interest rates. Boom. Bust. It's monetary reform we need - everything else is just a symptom.

I鈥檓 in a mixed boat, my buy to let in Belfast which I bought 2 years for 107K is now on the market for 230K. My mum has come into money and is also lending me a fair whack on top. Recent job moves mean I earn 50K and my wife earns 43K, big improvements. On the downside I鈥檓 30 years old and have had to watch as many colleagues of mine who entered the job market 3 + years before me have cleaned up in this housing boom that has seen me pay rent to various landlords for the past 7 years since graduation. Since I graduated my rent has raised inline with the landlord mortgage repayments and my savings have severely depreciated relative to house prices. despite a self imposed ban on holidays and other saving measures. Soon I can finally afford my 4 bedroom dream house in East London, thanks to generous parents and a quirk of the delayed housing boon in N. Ireland. Yet I still feel nothing but contempt for the social injustice that seen myself and my wife exploited as tenants for past 7 years. As someone who a made over 120K for practically no effort I am a very good position to question the rationalisation that many people use to justify their gains at the expense of others. In centuries gone past we had movements like the reformation or the Jesuits who fought for social justice but in this day and age where social injustice is so much more subtle and discreet but no less damaging in terms of long term prospects who is there is to speak for the little guy. This may sound melodramatic but I can sincerely say that myself and my wife would have started a family 5 years but for the fear of a poverty trap and a desire to slave our little corporate socks off in order to get on the housing ladder before our first child. Ps. The irony of my opinions and the fact that I鈥檓 a landlord does not escape me.

Yes. Bring on the crash. And bring on greater regulation of financial services, and develop policies that help those who get their houses reposessed.

The reality is that as many people would benefit from a crash as those that will lose out. I will be looking to enter the housing market in a few years, and looking at the situation at the moment there is simply NO WAY i would borrow 200 grand to buy a 1 bedroomed flat in London. It is just an utterly ridiculous investment, in every respect. It would only be possible if i had a partner, and even then it would involve borrowing about five times our joint salary and put us in debt to a bank for the next quarter of a century, at least. Utter madness, and it cannot go on for much longer.

I am a scientist/engineer with a high level of commercial and R&D experience and quals (i.e. Phd, MPhil, MSc,BSc, CPhy) with a young family living in the South east. I have, and remain unwilling to borrow 5* my salary to buy a small poor quality 2-3 bed estate house in crappy area for 250-350k.

Instead, like a number of my collegues, I am currently applying for jobs abroad (Europe and US), due to the recent insane acceleration in houseprice inflation and its detachment from economic reality (eg average salary inflation).

In my opinion, Gordon Brown's policies (eg. unchecked money lending) have allowed an army of uneducated spivs (e.g. from Estate Agents to self-employed tradesmen such as plumbers, builders, etc...) to gain incredible personal wealth soley through ownership of multiple BTL properties (not hard graft or business innovation). This is having an untold damaging effects upon the UKs long term propects, especially New Labours aspirations to a so-called knowledge based economy.....(no wonder Gordon could only intro a celeb chef,a TV producer and a bunch of ex ad-execs as shining examples of british business on the ITV awards the other night...Pathetic).

Well I hope all the people who voted for Labour are happy. There is much press about them manufacturing this boom on purpose. I hope there is a crash and look forward to hearing our new PM expalin it, being it's creator.....

Our current situation is a symptom of using CPI as a measure of inflation, which excludes many other measures and wider issues. This focus for targets was a political decision that reveals that the Bank of England is not independent. It was an attempt to harmonise with the European measure, which has paralels with our pull out from the exchange rate mechanisms, prior to the last crash. Interest rates would have hovered closer to 5% for the past few years had our target been based on RPI.

It will be hard to avoid a crash this time, because rates must rise, but lessons can be learned. Members of the Bank of England should be appointed by an independent commission and or Bank of England itself, not the treasury and the bank should have to conform to general principles, i.e. financial stability, to let them have more control over the specific targets that they follow.

The question of whether we need a crash is irrelevent as one is now inevitable. Prices are substantailly out of kilter with long term norms on any measure you care to look at. To beleive that prices can continue to outstrip earnings indefinitely , or simply plateau for years is to disregard all economic history and is frankly delusional.

The crash will be bigger than previous ones as buy-to-letters will be quicker to sell when their investment asset starts being a financial burden. Like all pyramid sales schemes it will be those who came to the party late who will be horribly stung.

Scrolling through the comments above my own, I couldn't find one person that thought lowering house prices was a bad idea. It's obvious that it needs to happen to get us out of this crazy renting state. I live in a two bed flat (renting), I don't want to live in a flat and I don't know anyone else who 'wants to' but the younger generation of this country really don't have a choice. We have been forced into flats that nobody wants.

I would like a nice family home with a garden like the one I grew up in. I want my future children to experience the same freedom and pleasure of a home not a hamster size flat with nowhere to play. I want to be able to invite guests round without having to fight my neighbours for the few visitor spaces available. The list goes on...

Prices need to come down or there's going to be a serious problem for the younger generation.

If you are priced out of the housing market you need to take advantage of the over supply of BTL proporties by offering a lower rent. Many landlords will accept a lower rent to let their property and in turn you get very good valule accomadation. You have to make this situation work for you.

There is clearly demand for houses. Why has there not been a huge increase in the supply of new houses on the outskirts of our cities? I have heard the 'lack of land' argument, but every time I fly over London on a clear day, I am struck by the sprawling fields of green outside the M25! Is the problem the planners or the builders?

Peter #159 - "I have been able to withdraw 拢55,000 in equity from my house and have a lovely car and have been on holidays because of this - rising house prices. I want prices to keep rising so that I can get more equity out."

You seem to have forgotten that you have to pay it back. That's the silliest reason for wanting prices to rise that I have ever heard.

Given that buying a house is out of reach for so many people, the least the government can (and should) do is to change the legislation to improve the conditions of those who rent. With the "short assured tenancy", people may be forced to move out at very short notice. Since many people have no choice but renting, this is unacceptable.

I feel there are two major factors which need to be address. The popularity of the buy to let market has caused a shortage in houses for 1st time buyers. There should be a incremental tax charge for each additional house bought which would reduce the attractivness of buy to let, making more houses available in the market. Secondly the mortgage providers have a big responsibility as if they would not support payments on 5 x salary or include non regular salary payments, this would again mean people can not afford to buy, so therefore the prices would have to decrease. There has been too much irresponsible lending over the last 5 years.

The 主播大秀 is part of the problem. For years you have been very willing to broadcast spin on behalf of vested interest groups and thus talk the "market" up.Have you ever offered your audience true critical analysis of the well timed and coordinated media releases from Estate Agents,Money Lenders and others? Why did you not expose the Low Interest Rate con and warn License Fee payers that the markets were to be further fixed? Of course we need a crash but it will not happen until your chums and Government masters say so.

Without doubt we need a healthly correction to the UK housing market. Prices are grossly over-valued and not sustainable in the medium-term. It has been a speculative market now for the last 3-4 years, mainly due to cheap money that the mortgage companies will lend to virtually anyone. We are in over 1.3 TRILLION pounds worth of debt, this is a huge weight to be hanging from the UK economy. People seem to have forgotten it needs to be paid back.... with interest.

I find the comments on here encouraging. Finally sentiment seems to have turned away from the ridiculous 'house price race' the media has been goading for the last few years.

Runaway inflation in an essential good is never, ever a good thing; and when a whole economy is dependent on MEWing notional values to pay for life's essentials you know the inflation has spread, and something needs to give.

I've been vilified for a long while now for my bearish stance on UK property - some of my 'friends' see my views as pure evil, and a couple have said that i don't have a clue. I'd beg to differ...

Either way i have no intention of buying into the UK pyramid scheme unless there is a crash or correction. If that means living abroad then so be it.

The crowd lost all sense of reality, and the fundamentals were left behind a while ago. People go mad in herds and return to sanity one by one. Good to see so many sane folk posting here!

The bank of England have left it too late. They reduced interest rates too low, so that the rate of inflation was more than the interest rate. Now they have acted too late to rise them. When your cash, and cash you can borrow is worth less than in the future it is a one way bet to buy assets such as houses. As more people cotton on the asset rise is a self fulfilling prophecy. Once the fundermental costs are ignored then the crash is certain.

I am 27 now, have begun my family, yet still unable to afford a home for my family. Banks are willing to lend me 6 times my salary, shared equity schemes are there propping up already over-inflated prices, and all the while, the harder i work and save my deposit, the quicker house price inflation is turning it into nothing. I've been 4 years waiting, renting, being subjected to quartley inspections by letting agencies, having my accommodation sold from underneath me and my family without warning, and constructively put into the renting underclass. I am from the generation that has 拢15k student loan debt, massive house price inflation. Buy to let should stop and houses should not be an investment vehicle or asset class, they should be homes for people to live in. A crash will happen, as before - the social agenda has been lost to speculative housing market making people paper rich, credit rich, equity rich, and all the while robbing from our generation. It's sad, greedy, vile and distgusting. Multiple home ownership, and immigration has put further pressure on this sorry state of affairs.

I believe I've read over a 100 comments now and there seems to be a lot of motivation to resolve this issue.

We have moved to a society feeling it is 'richer' because house prices have gone up. What nonsense. The only people who are richer are those who can sell their property to cash in on their paper profits (perhaps such as clever BTL types who are getting out).

The real heart of the matter is not affordability (please read any treatise of supply and demand for inelastic markets). It is the fact that not enough houses are available. Building constraints, NIMBYism, and plain greed (2nd and 3rd properties, or land for that matter, standing empty for capital gains) promoted by the Government (make money out of things that are pure market driven, ie shares, and you get taxed, make money out of something that is essential, ie shelter, keep the cash).

There is an entire generation that has been shafted. Anyone fancy bringing up 2 children in a 1 bed flat?

Me - I left the country. I have been lucky enough to get a job in Germany where speculation has been kept under control. Somebody on an average salary can actually afford an average house. I would encourage others to do the same. Let the people who have lined their pockets see what happens when there are not enough productive people to pay taxes to keep the essential services going.

The UK economic miracle. I don't think so. Watch in the next 5 years as the UK turns into the laughing stock of Europe because our entire notion of wealth and productivity is based on a speculative bubble.

The way prices have risen over the past ten years have literally RUINED my life now. I cannot even hope to get on the housing ladder and I am in my late forties with a big deposit. My father bought a house in the early sixties when he was fifty. He finished paying it off ten years later. No hope of that for me. I'm sooooo angry!!!!!!!!!

"Rather than providing cheaper houses to buy - which would then only go up to market prices and benefit only the people lucky enough to buy them, the government should concentrate on providing cheap rental housing."

That's not true. Prices are determined primarily by supply and demand. If you increase the supply, prices will drop, all other things being equal. This is a basic tenet of economics

Certainly a housing crash would hurt a lot of people, but it would also help many young professional people I know to buy their first homes; other young people I know would get stuck in negative equity and be unable to move, say, to get a better job. Those very greedy people who have been snapping up property in a speculative fashion, and thus forcing up prices to the detriment of would be first-time homebuyers, might get their fingers burned. Not everyone would feel sorry for them.

Dear Nesnight;
THE FUNDAMENTAL reason why house prices have become so ludicrously high is this: - The Mortgage Companies/Banks etc. i.e. The Moneylenders - have deliberately fuelled prices ever higher by lending more and more money to all and sundry. They have NOT put a lid on multiples or amounts loaned - and the LIE TO BUY scam revealed three years ago by the 主播大秀 Money Programme [/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/10_october/29/money_programme_mortgage.shtml] is part and parcel of an appalling ramping of the market by the vested interests. It has become the World's Biggest Ever Pyramid Selling Scam. It has and still is ruining peoples鈥� lives in the process. It is a TOTAL DISGRACE.

I am not priced out at today's interest rate in terms of incomings and outgoings but I would be if we saw base interest rates of 6 to 7%. I think there are many buyers out there who aren't prepared to contemplate this level of interest and feel there is a mentality of buy while they still can. I don't know if we need a crash but I do get the feeling that most of Britain wouldn't be able to afford their own home at todays prices on their current income (anyone for a tulip?). I also don't see how any form of shared ownership or keyworker strategy can work. All it will do in my mind is create a wage slavery for key workers as the labour market will stay out of balance. The well off will soon offer to pay more or move away if the key workers simply aren't there and the market will then naturally correct itself. Likewise shared ownership makes no sense to me either in anything other than an undervalued market as the capital has to come from somewhere and it has to have a rate of return to make it worth lending.

Demand is the obvious dynamic, affordability is the 2nd dynamic. The Government have allowed the mortgage lenders to advance 5+ times income (and this is still increasing) meaning that borrowers will never pay back what they owe. If borrowing is restricted to affordable levels (2 x salary eg.) then house prices are bound to fall.

Yes, and the sooner the better! Why? Because the longer the inevitable is delayed the worse the crash will be.

Back in 2005 the market had started to cool down nicely but with no crash. Then the BoE decreased interest rates and bang prices start booming again. If the market couldn't cope with interest rates then how will it cope when they get close to 6%? It won't I think and this time it won't just cool it will crash as so many more people have overstreched themselves.

Supply and demand problem? Not really. Back during the dot.com bubble people said share prices whould never crash as they're not printing anymore amazon (etc.) shares. Guess what it crashed!

It is funny reading ,that Inflation is a big surprise to market analyst and to the B.O.E , who were told that inflation was 2.8% in December and when it reached 3.1% ,a letter had to be drafted to alert the Chancellor about it. Did the Bank Governors, think for a minute, that elevated inflation levels, would just settle back to the 2% , without aggressive hikes to cool the economy which is mostly running on , mortgage debt. Or was it because of the Christmas shopping and the sales that followed, getting every last cent that they can and not wanting to cool the housing market, with higher rates, as long as it can. Why doesn't anyone mention the 1.3 Trillion Pound (and counting), debt that is fuelling the property market and the effects that it will have on people being lured by banks, programs on TV and property developers, saying that you must get on property ladder, no matter what. I was brought up always told," it's not your until you own it ". So if you think you own your home, car or even that plasma screen, on a mortgage or on credit, listen up - it's Not yours !
So what goes around , comes around , by paying more when interest goes up to curb your spending.

We most certainly do need a house price crash because I don`t want to work just to keep a roof over my head, I want to be able to keep warm and buy some food to live on otherwise I may as well just die now.

"But, with property prices as they are, first time buyers simply cannot afford to live here. Something needs to be done 鈥� London is becoming a really difficult environment."

Pyramid schemes do not require active intervention to come to an end; they do that on their own as a mathematical inevitability. The important thing is to ensure you're not one of the "bigger fools" who are among the last to buy into the scheme. Hold your nerve and stay out of the current housing bubble. It will collapse in due course.

What we do need is a policy by the Government of housing rationing, with immediate effect. Stop the holiday/2nd homes, buy-to-let. There should be a pause of some sort but a crash would be too painful for very many who are struggling with just one home.
There is no point in building umpteen thousand more houses if they can be bought for investment by those who have already done well, when some people can't even buy one home. A property rationing policy should steady the prices quite quickly.

I do not see how it is possible for first time buyers to ever get on the property ladder with the way current house prices are! I earn 拢12500 a year which makes it completely impossible,and how is this kind of salary relevant to the cost of living?? At 28,im having to still live at home with my parents because even renting is out of the question!

I save money each month,but even this is nowhere near enough for a deposit on current house prices.

Somebody make the house prices crash!

I see some comments here saying that the free market has failed in the housing market - uh?

How on earth is the housing market a free market? It is the incessant incompetent meddling of the state that has created this catastrophe. From planning laws making it impossible to build enough houses, to stamp duty, to HIPs, the government should just get out of the housing market asap and let the true prices, bereft of this huge distortion, come forth.

I think interest rates will continue to rise which will inevitably lead to huge numbers of people defaulting and losing their homes. I understand that this is happening already.

I have resigned myself to living out of London when I get on the ladder because even a severe crash wont dent the huge demand around here.

Here is the puzzle: I bought 50% of a flat in east london in 1997 through shared ownership for 32.5K while my salary was 14k. 10 years later the flat is valued at 250k which gives me 125k which is great but also leaves me in a position where I cannot afford to purchase the other 50% on my current salary... The only hope of doing that is if the housing market goes bust! None of the friends who did not get on the property ladder 10 years ago are in a position to even hope of getting on it and I do think it is unfair especially as they are in low paid jobs making them forever dependent on fairly ruthless london landlords.

I say bring it on. I earn 30k a year, my wife works and earns 18k a year, sure we can afford a flat, but it will be the size of a shoe box and our monthly mortgage payments will be almost double what we pay in rent for a decent sized flat. If things do not change, all the young professionals in this country will move on....and who can blame them?

The present state of affairs is not acceptable in a society that considers itself to be fair. House prices maintained at the current level represent a significant shift of wealth from the younger generation to the older generation, burdening young people with significant levels of debt for longer periods than previous generations. The restoration of the ratio of house prices to incomes to historic averages(about 3.5) would be very welcome and I remain optimistic that it will happen. Indeed, the market is already indicating an adjustment is nigh. What I should like to know is why house price inflation is treated differently to other forms of inflation by government statistical and policy agencies and why the historically high prices have been ramped further in the media not least by property programmes which seem to disegard the social consequences of high house prices. Politicians, particularly Members of Parliament, might reasonably be asked how much they have benefited through property interests developed over the past decade (particularly in respect of second homes on which interest payments are paid by the taxpayer) and whether these interests have prevented tackling the causes of house price inflation much sooner; particularly low interest rates and the related irresponsible lending by many banks. I look forward to watching the programme tonight and welcome Newsnight's coverage of this important issue.

Tax away the profit on land speculation.

I live in the States and can't afford my first house... as a programmer with $100k. It sounds like a lot but I pay out of pocket for health insurance, university, grad school, lots of other essentials that Europeans take for granted.

There are several different, but inter-related problems. Firstly, the slackening off of rates after 9/11 to allow us all to forget about the whole thing and go on a spending and house buying spree in order to prevent a recession, that was actually due as part of the normal business/credit/money cycle. This has since been admitted by Lord George, then Bank Of England Governer. Secondly, the preponderence of buy-to-let, the easing of credit restrictions and de-regulation of banking practices means higher lending multiples, affordability criteria being rejigged and of course the dreaded phenomenon of MEW. Thirdly, the measure of inflation to which the BoE has worked against to set interest rates is a total and utter sham. People need to realise that the amount of extra money, known by economists as M4, or broad money being pumped into the economy is and has been running at 12-14% yoy for the last four to five years and has been mostly going into housing - eventually it'll start going into other areas, like food and utility bills but won't be allowed to go in to wages, because we have to somehow compete with the rising Far Eastern economies. And finally, the mixture of brainwashing and arm twisting by the Govt, Estate Agents and TV Proprty Porn media that's convinced my generation it's good to have a shedload of debt round your neck for paper, not real wealth. I was as much of a sucker until I saw the light.

To solve all this? People need to pay back what they've lent. Interest rates need to rise to encourage saving and real wealth/business creation, the pound needs to be revalued against all other currencies as it's wildy overpriced: renting needs to be seen as a viable way for people to live by revising the tenancy laws. Buy-To-Lets should be heavinly taxed and maybe even put capital gains on owner occupied homes. But doing all this will be unpopular, cause a lot of people a lot of pain, and result in the downfall of any government in power at the time. So, nothing of course will be done until it's far too late. Don't you just love this country?

We don't need a house price crash, we need house price armageddon. The average UK house price of 拢200K is now over 8 times the average UK salary. Regionally the situation is worse than this statistic appears. The high earners are living in areas with the most unatainable house prices.

Gone for at least the next decade, if not forever, are the days of Mr Average buying a house on 3.5 times salary whilst Mrs Average stops at home with the kids. One may reflect on why our nation was stupid enough to forsake this.

Rising interest rates are the only thing which will curb house prices.
Make no mistake, interest rates are rising worldwide, the UK will not escape this. The UK government may attempt to stem the tide for a short politicsally sensitive time when seeking relection, but world market trends cannot be beaten.
The UK has been borrowing and printing money like confetti so we are now the most indebted nation in the western world. Sooner or later our debts will have to be paid. Only high interest rates will retain confidence in sterling and prevent a collapse in our economy. Thats right, high interest rates will be good for the economy, low interest rates will be a disaster.

Many twenty to thrity somethings are now shut out from the home owning family life which could reasonably be achieved by an older generation.
A cursory review of comments posted against house price articles such as this reveals the ovewrwhelming anger and despair of this situation.

Polititians, of whatever flavour in Westminster, appear an arrogant, detatched, dismissive, increasing wealthy apparatchik too inept to tackle this problem. Those in government espouse how much wealthier we are with them at the helm. Yet real incomes are falling. The private pension pot, once the richest in Europe, is raided for billions of pounds to prop up an oversized wasteful public sector.
Our infrastructure and services (and maybe our environment) are becomming overwhelmed with unconstrained immigration. itself placing further demands on a limited housing supply.

There are no easy solutions to this problem. Rising interest rates will bring a reality check to the situation. The greens and nimbys will have to accept that with a rising population more houses have to be built necessitating loss of greenbelt and coutryside. Yet where are the politicians prepared to stand up and be counted and use the affairs of state to tackle this ludicrous state of affairs.

We don't need a house price crash, we need house price armageddon. The average UK house price of 拢200K is now over 8 times the average UK salary. Regionally the situation is worse than this statistic appears. The high earners are living in areas with the most unatainable house prices.

Gone for at least the next decade, if not forever, are the days of Mr Average buying a house on 3.5 times salary whilst Mrs Average stops at home with the kids. One may reflect on why our nation was stupid enough to forsake this.

Rising interest rates are the only thing which will curb house prices.
Make no mistake, interest rates are rising worldwide, the UK will not escape this. The UK government may attempt to stem the tide for a short politicsally sensitive time when seeking relection, but world market trends cannot be beaten.
The UK has been borrowing and printing money like confetti so we are now the most indebted nation in the western world. Sooner or later our debts will have to be paid. Only high interest rates will retain confidence in sterling and prevent a collapse in our economy. Thats right, high interest rates will be good for the economy, low interest rates will be a disaster.

Many twenty to thrity somethings are now shut out from the home owning family life which could reasonably be achieved by an older generation.
A cursory review of comments posted against house price articles such as this reveals the ovewrwhelming anger and despair of this situation.

Polititians, of whatever flavour in Westminster, appear an arrogant, detatched, dismissive, increasing wealthy apparatchik too inept to tackle this problem. Those in government espouse how much wealthier we are with them at the helm. Yet real incomes are falling. The private pension pot, once the richest in Europe, is raided for billions of pounds to prop up an oversized wasteful public sector.
Our infrastructure and services (and maybe our environment) are becomming overwhelmed with unconstrained immigration. itself placing further demands on a limited housing supply.

There are no easy solutions to this problem. Rising interest rates will bring a reality check to the situation. The greens and nimbys will have to accept that with a rising population more houses have to be built necessitating loss of greenbelt and coutryside. Yet where are the politicians prepared to stand up and be counted and use the affairs of state to tackle this ludicrous state of affairs.

My Wife and I have two children.
We have been renting for six years in Devon. Hoping that the house prices will at least level.
But continued inaction by our Government has fueled house price speculation.

City Bonuses, low taxes for overseas investors in London, the influx of migrant workers from eastern Europe,massive levels of dept- all of these could have been controlled but our leaders chose not to.

I think is time for everyone to ask WHY ?

Watch my film freedom fo fascism on youtube. It exposes how the federal reserve, and the BoE are private banks.

This is why houseprices have got so high, and it is also why they will definitely crash.

The central banks throw the economies of the world between easy and tight money, causing booms/busts, i.e. the business cycle. A house price crash will enable the ruling elites to usurp more wealth from the masses.

ive lost all motivation in working now, seems like i work to pay rent and bills. whats the point of working if your outgoings are almost the same as you pay?

I am currently 28 and hold a senior management position in a FTSE100 company, earning a little over 拢76,000 a year. I have a family with two very young children, and currently am priced out of buying a home in my area of the South East. It would take most of my takehome salary to cover the mortgage on a one bedroom house. I don't expect to have to cram a family of four into one bedroom. Hence I currently rent a house from a local social housing association. Does aynone else think the above scenario is pretty messed up?

Save money and buy a house. Cut back on things like we all had to!

I have no sympathy for those who say they cannot afford a house yet go out and buy things like new cars, DVDs, flat screen TVs or simply booze it away.

Guys like that don't deserve to own their own property.

I started from nothing and now have a portfolio of over 20 properties. I'm now a multi-millionaire all because the youth of today would sooner rent from me and have the newest/best TV than be responsible and save.

We don't need a crash, we need first time buyers to stop whinging and start saving!

I鈥檓 afraid the blame for spiralling house prices in the UK over the past 10 years must rest with the Labour government. Why? Well consider these points:
1. Labour has done very little to halt the spread of property speculation that has seen the 鈥榖uy-to-let鈥� market boom at the expense of first time buyers 鈥� and why do people need more than one home in a country where housing is already scarce? Presumably to make a profit at someone else鈥檚 expense whilst driving property prices ever higher and further squeezing supply?
2. Why have banks and building societies been allowed to get away with irresponsible lending criteria for so long? Presumably to keep house prices buoyant and therefore provide an additional source of wealth to keep the economy growing?
3. Why did the BoE reduce interest rates to such unsustainable levels between 2002 and now? Presumably again to keep the economy buoyant, but at what cost? Well, it seems to be at the cost of those born after ~1965 who are considerably poorer now (with respect to housing) than their parents. For example, a friend鈥檚 parents were able to buy a 4-bedroom detached house in the 1980s for only 7 times the UK average salary 鈥� to buy the same house now you would need almost 20 times the average salary.
4. We live in a country where 99% of the population lives on less than 10% of the land whilst close to 70% of the land is owned by fewer than 200,000 families. So why has not more been done to update the Planning Laws and allow more land to be acquired for development? Even a doubling of the land available for housing would leave over 80% of England and Wales as rural countryside, but would dramatically reduce the cost of housing. Whilst this would have a big impact on those that moved prior to any 鈥榗orrection鈥�, it would permanently rid us of the speculative 鈥榖uy-to-letters鈥�.

The boom was engineered by Eddie George with a deliberate decision to overheat the housing market and avoid an anticipated recession in 2003.

The Bank of England and current governor have to take responsibility for that decision, and stop being complacent about the bubble it created by bringing rates up to control the inevitable inflationary pressures. And recalculating inflation measures won't do it this time.

The current Bank's governor can't be the King of Wishful Thinking for ever ...

Potential house buyers should unite and pledge not to pay the silly prices being asked by sellers. If everyone seeking a house offered say, 25%, of the asking price, sellers would get the message quickly. Those who really need to sell will do so. Those who don't will withdraw and sulk. Those looking to move up will see the gap between what they have and what they want reduce.

Potential house purchasers should unite and pledge not to pay the silly prices being asked by sellers. If there was a concerted nationwide campaign to offer only 25% of the asking price, sellers and estate agents would soon get the message. Those who need to sell would do so at a low price. Those who do not need to sell would sulk and withdraw from the market. Those who wish to move up would see a reduced gap between what they own and what they aspire to.

I love this comment on the 主播大秀 blog, since it tells me the tide is really turning... people are really feeling the pinch and government will tighten the screw on the BTLers and regulate this river of 'oil money' pouring into London property... just allowing the usual arms dealing and money laundering but keeping it out of property

"I am currently 28 and hold a senior management position in a FTSE100 company, earning a little over 拢76,000 a year. I have a family with two very young children, and currently am priced out of buying a home in my area of the South East. It would take most of my takehome salary to cover the mortgage on a one bedroom house. I don't expect to have to cram a family of four into one bedroom. Hence I currently rent a house from a local social housing association. Does aynone else think the above scenario is pretty messed up?"

249. "I am currently 28 and hold a senior management position in a FTSE100 company, earning a little over 拢76,000 a year"

At least house price inflation is a great leveller. A lot of people are shafted - rich and poor.

On the bright side people are lucky to have something from a housing association. I left the Uk because I felt it wasn't the best thing to bring my 2 children up in a 1 bed flat where I could be evicted any month.

You sound like a high achiever of above average intelligence. What on Earth are you doing in the UK?

This debate is astounding. The more noise the better.

RJ your earning little over 拢76,000 a year, if you cant buy then think about the rest of us. Time to move abroad i think, at least i may get the chance of living in a property even if i may get paid less.

A system of home loan grants should be made available where the government supports first home buyers by granting about 10,000 which could be used as a deposit on the buyers home. Also the government should consider loaning money to some prospective home buyers, taking banks out the picture.

What's to stop squatters from taking back some of these empty houses? Anyone else read about the squatter in a London park who is now a millionairre? There's whole towns in cornwall that are empty in the winter!! You'd need to be mental to buy now whilst the housing market is peaking, or some housing programme nut on speed who needs just the one more quick hit.

Trinity accounting is a way forward...拢拢拢 ...Property Residence Location

Can all be offered and paid for in different ways by different funders...

Shares in The location...the investments of companies and tax funded projects..enhance the location and the desirability of homes...

The home price could be largely represented in Variable Advantage Shares in ways similar to BT, Power companies, and other successful mass participation share offer projects....the idea has been around for years...the possibilities must have been explored by now....most of the shares would be owned by PLCs as mortgage conversions...

Residence entitlements could be offered to anybody by the owner with national subsidies to support students engineers nurses etc..

The key is not to only build more houses, but to restrict who buys them. I feel the housing market is dominated by 鈥淏uy to let鈥� buyers who are snapping up affordable housing and prices are so high because the people buying them are doing so to make profit. These are the people who need to be targeted by the government, maybe a tax on those that own more then x amount of houses or restrictions on who can purchase new houses.

I ask myself this question, how many of these first time buyers will inherit a house or a share of a property owned by their parents , which will be paid for mortgage free, and will they still want a crash when they are on the ladder?? when i bought my hose i have had to apy for it , not get it left to me. my children who cannot afford to get on the ladder will be gifted a house , not bad i reckon. wish it had happened to me

Surely the government needs to penalise the companies and landlords who own 100s of properties. Why are they not taxed more? Could there not be more tax on second homes etc?

This would push such investors away from housing, encourage them to invest in other markets eg. technology industry etc, and free up the market for more people who want to buy a house to live in, rather than buy a house to rent to people who will be unhappy renting!

Seems obvious to me, am I missing something? What are think tanks for?

Would it not make sense for the government to start building council accommodation again. Charging a decent rent for it. The rent would pay for the councils to build more houses, a reasonable rent would begin to compete with private sector housing to keep the rents down. Once this begins to move, people will start to become happy to rent a place at a reasonable rent, private landlords will be constrained as to how much they can charge, and if managed well, the government can make enough money to reinvest into housing stock. Also making new towns in less popular areas with good public transport so there is more choice of where to live to actually get to your workplace would help.

The elephant in the room that no one in power is talking about is large scale Buy to Let Investors. They are causing the price boom.

There is no better risk to ward ratio investment in this country than residential property investment.

Punitive taxes should be imposed on anyone that owns more than 2 houses.

Let's face it. This housing boom restarted after the stockmarket dot-com crash when investors put their money into buy-to-let sweeping up most of the lower priced properties.

Investors get full tax relief on mortgages whreass owner occupiers get nothing.

Had nu-labour had the guts to repeal thatchers right to buy policy and replaced it with cash grants for long term social tenants to move into the private sector things would have been better.

We dont need a crash... the poorest people would be affected... it is shortsighted...

Limit property developers owning more than, say, 2 houses... set these houses free from the modern equivalent of the fuedal landlord... get those houses back into the world (ok, UK...) housing stock...

BAN DAYTIME TV PROGRAMMES (dont know their names... PROPERTY LADDER?) THAT ADVOCATE THIS...

I'm an estate agent. The majority of the properties that I sell below 拢200,000 are to investors. If the prices fell, the investors would simply hoover up more properties.
I seem to recall that up to about 20 years ago it was illegal to have a mortgage on more than one house. If the buy to let brigade was out of the equation I would expect house prices to stabilise at the lower end of the market, and maybe some of the hysteria go out of it too. At the end of the day a home should be somewhere to live in, not to speculate over.

This relentless increase in house prices just devalues everything else - for example why bother saving? the value of our savings has effectively plummeted to 1/10 of its value of 10 years ago. Why bother investing in industry? You're better of investing in property.
As a householder with 3 daughters I'd be happy to see a property crash back to sensible levels, to weed out the speculators and drones and open up the market again to first time buyers on 2 1/2 times a single salary.

Let's not forget that the most of the UK housing stock is quite old and I really can't understand why a house can be so expensive. The price of a house should be a bit more you would pay if you built it yourself, not twice or more.

Personaly, I think over the last 5 years investors have sucked up most of the first time buyer properties as well as other factors such as low morgage rates and low housing supply have shifted inflation from goods and services to property. In my opinion the only way to stabilise prices would be a restriction on investors in property as well as increasing supply of high density brown-field sites. Of course, house builders wont like this as the will have to bear the cost of remediation. Like others, i would like a crash to shap up a cheap property, but cant see it happening in the short term unless the economy goes into meltdown which I think wont happen. As for those that borrowed too much on morgage and credit, you reap what you sow - never borrow more than you can afford.

Memories are remarkably short. Some 50 years ago there was an even worse housing shortage, but the maximum that any building society would lend was twice the male earner's salary, and we were told that interest rates were at all all time hig!! We could only borrow 拢1,500 on a house worth 拢3,150. Limiting credit kept the prices down. ( The rest came from family support) Selling after 13 years we got 拢6,500 or thereabouts. We sold our second house for 拢250,000 thirty years later. Now 6 years on it is worth more than double that and we could no longer afford to buy it or even the house built in the garden (now 拢450,000).

In our new area it is the second homes that are only used at week-ends and occasionally let that keep all the locals pressing for more housing which will in turn be bought as more second homes. In our street, 2 out of 5 homes are empty for about 3 out of 4 weeks or rather week-ends.

Additionally insisting that starter homes only have two bedrooms means that on the arrival of a family moving becomes necessary and there is little more unsettling and expensive than moving.

i watched news night tonight mainly for teh talk about property, there was a mention about about having a house tax of 1% but the downside was people wouldnt what it. the theory itself about 1-2% on house can be achived simply thru the council tax form, there could be a section asking for are you an owner or renter if your a renter please fill in name and address of lanlord. this could be used to tax the lanlord and not the owner who lives in the property.

It is all very well saying that we need more houses, but how many exactly? No-one is talking about what the 'sustainable' level of population is for our island. Is it 60 million or 160 million? The country is already very congested - as long as the 'demand' continues to be met, the 'need' will always exist. No-one is saying at what point the building will stop. I see much evidence that many people feel the country is overcrowded, and the quality of their lives is deteriorating due to the loss of green space. Surely the best way to reduce demand is to restrict/reduce the population growth? If the mainstream political parties do not address this issue in a non-descriminative, non-racist and sensitive way, there is a real risk that an 'extreme' political party may well do so in the future with terrible consequences.

There should be a cap on rent according to the area. This cap should be very low, allowing people to save for their own properties. If private landlords are unable to sustain more than one property, then they will be forced to sell thereby, releasing more properties onto the market.

I cannot understand why this government is so ignorant of the issues concerned with the housing shortage. Its a simple matter of supply and demand. Over the past 10 years the government has given over 1 000 000 foreigners British citizenship and has issued hundreds of thousands of visas to others to live in this country and now can't understand why there is a housing shortage. The answer seems obvious to me..... Destroy the countryside to house them all, of course!

I think we need a crash asap to adjust the affordabilty criteria. I was an office administrator on 拢17k in 1998 when I bought my property, I cant believe that young doctors cant afford their own property with their starting pay, its a disgrace. The last BOE minutes tells a thousand tales we all should be ready for a crash. The government wants us to believe that it is market forces that have pushed up prices, but it is not. The government wants us to keep buying as every sale in the UK gives Mr Brown lots of lolly. Eg. do you see the papers recording how much the chancellor makes each day on stamp duty alone? In the future we will all be given an `evaluation' we will be `strees tested' and new mortgage products will be tailored accordingly. I am over paying on my mortgage in an attempt to pay it off as soon as possible. I want to get out of this mortgage game asap.

House price inflation has been fuelled by an increase in the number of total households combined with a shortage of new housing. This has further been exasperated by an explosion of credit, particularly in the buy-to-let market. Supply has been decreased because of the high cost of moving due to stamp duty increases. Because of the ever increasing prices, people see housing as a good money spinner and they are tempted to buy bigger and bigger houses in order to make greater returns on their outlay (tax free of course). Conversely on a small overpopulated island we shoud be encouraging people to live in smaller units and not take up so much space. I suggest a cap on total credit allowed per person (to stop landlords owning 100's of properties which I consider excessive and greedy - I myself own 3 flats which I let out for investment, the first of which I saved for 10 years to buy (before buy to let mortgages.) so I am not just a landlord basher. Capital gains tax to be charged on all house sales including your main residence but with allowances (much like personal tax allowances) for each year owned in line with capital gains tax allowances 拢9000/year owned. Money raised to be spent on social housing. These measures combined should reduce the excessive house price inflation and give first time buyers the same chances to own their own homes, the rest of us have enjoyed over the past 15 years. Combine this with a reduction in the population and were in nirvana.
Rant over, goodbye.

"You sound like a high achiever of above average intelligence. What on Earth are you doing in the UK?"

Quite! Get out as I did, and move to Canada or Australia. Here in Vancouver I earn less than our FTSE100 76k friend does, but I can live easily within my means (I can save over 50% of my income every month), I can walk to work alongside parks and marinas and I can go skiing every weekend for four months of the year. And this is one of the most expensive areas in Canada! The UK in general and London in particular have become an absolute joke. If you have the ability to do so, leave for a better life abroad.

the funny thing the EAs said there was 500 homes and 5000 people on his books, EAs will have to lower their commission prices in order to get the properties on the books, meaning loss of income and a more competitiveness between them.
infact high house prices arnt good for anyone. Seem EAs have no clue about economics. Soon EAs will start to feel supply and demand in relation to competitiveness, just like any other bussiness.

Andrew Marr was interesting on Wednesday night. After the war people just took the property they needed.I wonder if that might happen again?

We are of course 167% of GDP in debt the second highest (possibly the most) indebted nation in the world.Some say that the average indebtedness (not allowing for kids and non productive people) is 拢236,000 approx. We don't make anything and the only thing we export is buy to letting.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.... It will not end well at all will it?

And, oil prices are $71 a barrel,Mervyn King's assumptions on inflation are set at $40 per barrel and inflation appears stubbornly high at twice what the government say it is... Interest rates may need to go up to 7.5% Now that would me interesting...

Tick...Tock.....Tick.....Tock..... Kerrrboooom!

Yes, we do need a substantial crash in house prices - the euphemistic "correction" - to rectify this boom having run 3-4 years longer that it should have.

Most real estate professional, commentators and economists knew the "corection" should have taken place several yaers ago, when prices had already escalated unhealthily but within the pattern of all boom-bust cycles.

This extended and socially divisive boom occured because of artificially low interest rates and "cheap money" emanating from the USA despite the USA beaing terminally broke and living off the rest of the world to the tune of drawing in $3 billion foreign capital per day.

Low interet and business hungry banks, in the majority of countries, created a plethora of virtually negative interest loans, mortages and re-finance your house deals that fuelled this boom, put borrowed money in peoples' pockets, fed the "feel good factor" and kept the populace happy.

As house price rose above all previous ratios and country after country vied for "the most expensive house price: income level in the world" many professionals and commentators tentatively suggested this was not a good thing and was leading to possibly the biggest bust ever.

Conspiracy minded theorists argue that governments create debt burden deliberately to keep the population timid, malleable, content with consumer rubbish and fearful of losing their mortages and credit ratings. May be something in that but most recognise the looming dangers of social unrest and economic hardship. Everyone over 35 remembers negative equity, previous crashes. Trouble is those younger than that think the fairies will always give them money at almost nil interest, that the paper gain of $1000 a day on their house is a natural right, that it'll go on forever.

What did governments do when they should have been getting out of the negative real interest trap? Nothing. They had "painted themleves into a corner" with electorates gorged on "free money" and feared the outcome; the ever higher mountain of debt, the repossessions and the social unrest created both by the high prices and inevitable when rates eventually rise and prices crash.

It is now happening in the USA, they have "Bitten the bullet" in very small bites; quarter point rises almost monthly, gently-gently but prices are already tumbling.

It is time the banks, mortgage companies, credit unions, shonky no doc, low security and refi-mortgage sharks were stopped from making fortunes from innocent borrowers. Time for sensible rates of interest (which would reduce the lenders need to lend to so many at low rates) affordable houses across the spectrum
and the re-adjustment that might still restore equity to society.

Take the heat off housing and once the dust subsides people MIGHT find they can actually converse about something else, live for something else, learn they are a great deal richer than the small minded- property obsessed sub-human they have been for so long.

And governments, always ready to claim praise for the effect in their own countries of what are often worlwide trends might actually educate their peoples this time, point out in unison that this WAS a global madness and share the blame for letting it happen. That's a way of getting "un-painted from the corner" without all the blame.

when you hear of people makeing a hundred grand on a second property in six months and not paying a penny tax ,while others do pay tax on every penny they earn, someone in government is not doing their job!but who is going to pay for that hundred grand. answer, somone is!! Gordon please ,please start taxing these people so we dont have an over heated housing market,you could start tomorrow!! prefably i could see that two years ago.

I just watched the programme .It Left me Dumbfounded. The panelists and political parties have no idea about the seriousnes of this issue,they are obviously doing well in housing.They actually think house prices will go on rising.
People have no lives anymore because of the cost of housing, just work lives, there children are taken care of by other people.
The lovely community i live in
has been TOTALY obliterated (ethnically cleansed) by second homes and holiday cottages in just five years, some day very soon our family (3 Young Children) will lose our home,I will lose my job and be left HOMELESS.
I see elderly boomers who have undeservedly done allright everywhere, I and my children are not going to work like dogs to make there lives more comfortable. If you have made money in property,you have been fortunate, that's all.
There WILL be a crash. If you doubt it your a fool. If nothing is done the fallout will be seismatic, i'm talking weimar republic. It's a massive issue.
Do i want a crash to happen ,i spend most of my time thinking how i could engineer one, to put and end to this Ugly Greed, get some quality of life back and stop people talking about house prices.

I was interested in your comment about the high cost of housing in the UK.

Through circumstances beyond my control I was forced to migrate overseas, now I would dearly love to love to return to the UK, however, that is now an impossible dream.

Under the present circumstances I would not be able to afford a
cardboard box under a railway arch.

Cheers Jo-An

The panelists made some remarks about demand being high and rising.Of course demand is high we are talking about shelter not faberge aggs.The demand is a constant ,people have to buy at whatever price the market dictates.

we need a housing market crash Shame on Labour for their abject failure to do anything about the growing gap between the UK's rich and poor.

Can't buy anything for under 拢150,000 where we live (even ex-council housing). Both myself and my wife are professionally qualified, but as we have a 2 year old and we both work we have to pay out 拢600 per month in child care, how are we supposed to be able to pay rent (private rent of course, as it is not possible to get a council house unless you are the sort of person that palns on never working), childcare and save for a deposit.

house prices are ridiculous, how many families have become rich on the back of house prices, being able to take equity out of there homes to buy new cars / flashy holidays. I really hope there is a crash but god help credit rich if there is, because there arn't any council houses available.

I am amazed at the opposition to more affordable housing by our MP's. Most people would welcome a drop in house prices because high prices make us poorer not richer.

I simply don't buy all this rubbish that the sky will cave in if houses become affordable again. If people are stretched to the limit they can fix their mortgage long term.

The problem will never go away without a correction, and people will always face dangerous amounts of borrowing in order to buy in future without it.

We need radical action to being down the prices. I suggest restrictions on the number of houses one can own, higher taxation for buy to let landlords and banning buy to invest (property empty for capital gain).
Houses should be homes and not investment vehicles.

A shocking level of ignorance (or cynical dishonesty?) displayed by the panel last night, except for the lady from pricedout.org. One expects it from an estate agent, but from a govt minister...? (Ok, I know).

They tell us the problem is demand, therefore build more houses. Then they mention all the buy-to-letters out-competing the FTBs. The problem, therefore, is the amount of investment money coming into the market, not the shortage of houses to live in (note that rents aren't soaring). This is caused by easy credit and the belief that prices always go up; the demand is driven by money flow, not homelessness. Was there an overnight collapse in the UK population in 1989?

Prices will continue to rise while lenders are prepared to lend ever larger sums, and people are prepared to borrow them (all sorts of financial wheezes to keep this going). But this cannot continue indefinitely and there will only be one result. Oh, unless it's different this time of course.

There is a substancial amount of hype over what is seen as a national problem over rising house prices. Yes, there is a big problem in the south but this should not be taken as the same for the whole country.

I live in an attractive north west seaside town within easy commuting distance of Liverpool and Manchester, where a four bedroomed house can be purchased for 拢250,000 or less. Here the market is very quiet. When you look at the local paper people are reducing prices to try and sell their houses. It is not uncommon for a house to be on the market for 6 months or more.

Two possible solutions.
1. Move north - there are good well payed jobs in Manchester and Liverpool.
2. Rather than another interest rate increase, what about a local property sales surcharge in the south.

The estate agent seriously sickened me last night when he said it was is job to push up prices.

Housing is a necessity like food and water. There would be an outcry if a supermarket or water company appeared on TV and said that they wanted to push up their prices.

Something drastic needs to happen.

Labour have got to take a very big black mark over housing.

Just imagine the hell they would have kicked up if they were in opposition and there were so many buy-to-let merchants under a Tory government.

I'm 27, earn a fairly good wage and live in the South East. However I have hardly any hope of owning a property because a 1 bed flat in my town is about 200k. It is actually 拢200 cheaper per month to rent than to get an interest only mortgage on the same flat. How can this be sound economics? It's a disgrace that the Buy-to-let market has got so crazy that landlords are willing to loose money on their monthly rent because they are banking on house prices continuing to rise. When the crash comes, and it will come, there will be egg on a lot of faces.
I also feel that many buy-to-let landlords are not declaring their additional income. They should be enforced; if it was enforced properly house prices would tumble. Buy to let landlords should also be made to pay 40% tax on their rental income, if they can afford two houses they can afford to pay more tax.
Roll on the crash, I think it will start late November/December 2007.

Anyone interested in really wanting to understand about the present housing bubble should read their history. For instance see

Houses might seem more secure than tulip bulbs but they could be mistaken. The price of commodities is restricted supply is mostly controlled by demand. And houses are no exception. Too many people think (wrongly) that bricks and mortar are a one-way bet.

As soon as the panic sets in, prices will tumble. After all.. who will buy now if you can be sure that in a few months time prices will be even cheaper. The buy to let crowd will be the first out of the market.

The madness will end soon....

If house prices don't crash, I am going to leave the country. If they do, they'll bring down economy and I'll have to leave the country. Either way, I am on my way. Dramatic!

What is the point of sending me emails when you rebuff my thoughts and ideas?

I have read through all the entries and find that nearly all the comments are for people that are in some sort of work even if it is low paid. Nothing from unemployed people who can't get on the affordable housing ladder.

This still dosen't in my mind get away from the fact that low paid workers or unemployed people don't stand a chance of getting a chance of getting on the ladder, let alone raising the deposit.

I hope there is a crash because then we will see some real panic stations in Great Britain, and a lot of working people that are working won't be able to afford their own homes.

My wife and I don't drink, don't go out, don't take foreign holidays, and watch the supermarket spending to ensure we keep to a budget.

We can afford our mortgage, we didnt over stretch our budget, we bought an economical 'do up' opportunity and expect to be working on it for a decade. Why should *we* be penalised for trying managing our finances carefully?

This house is our pension. Having had previous pensions and endowment wiped out by incompetant financial companies we cannot afford to live if they now gun for our home.

In answer to the above.

Not all are unemployed finding the prices unbearable.
I had one of my family here last week who has two degrees and earning quite a bit but still finds it difficult being on his own.
We cannot help him as my husband was made redundant five years back hence we too are stuck after having had to sell our house.
Where is Thatcher's motto,
'Now it is time for the savers'
There should be a big capital gains tax if one owns more than one house.

What a sad society we live in when the measure of one's worth seems to be linked to what you 'own' (or rather what you expensively rent from the bank). Greed is rampant, it is changing the fabric of society to a totally selfish, I'm alright jack mentality,driving out young intelligent professionals, and detering people from taking risks with new businesses, or going into research or public sector key jobs. I decided not to buy in the early nineties, instead I decided to go back to college, and change career. I have been severely punished for my decision by now being unable to buy a property. I have paid taxes all my life, rarely use the health service, pay 40% tax now, and have no incentive to stay in the UK any longer.Shame on the GREED of this government and the majority of but-to-let 'investors'. And I I ever have the misfortune to meet the smug 'Kirstie and Phil', I won't be responsible for my actions- grrrrr.

Posts before and after mine yesterday seem in general agreement, i.e. stop buy-to-lets, 2nd homes. Purchases of these have usually been by individuals at the lower end of the property market, leaving little choice even if one had the money for a first home. That form of "rationing" should come about immediately. This would steady prices and give buyers of small homes more choice.

It would mean that there was some point in building more houses,too, if people could have only one home for their own residential use.

I bailed out of the market last year and banked my gains. my landlady ( a buy to letter) is now trying to sell her houses as interest rises mean she cannot afford to stay in the game, think this is going to be an issue for all btl owners, bought when interest rates were low and the rent covered the interest sucking up any spare housing stock now they are doomed!

I am 23 and recently completed a bachelors and master degree. Despite having worked 20 hours a week over the past 5 years (whilst at unversity) and taken a year out for full time paid work, I still live with my parents and have student loans to pay. I have worked hard to reduce my costs and not lived the so called 'lavish' or unresponsible life of a student.

The current house price situation is another reason I feel ripped off by the older regeneration whose final salary pensions I will be paying for, seconds homes I will have to rent not to mention the record high tax burden and student loans I have to pay. If I ever here another old person say I have it easier than they did I dont know what I will do. One more reason for me to emigrate to a country where taxes and the cost of living are lower and where I will be paid a decent wage for the skilled work that I do.

There are two many people taking money out of the pot ranging from estate agents to solicitors.For example I can never understand why estate agents consider that 1% to 2% of the sale figure is a fair return for the actual work done? Stamp duty fixed when all the government needs to do is have the threshold on a sliding scale commensurate with market forces?
Go back to allowing only one partners wage to be taken into account after all prices rocket when there is more residual income?
Set up more co operatives to allow groups to invest in a newly built estate?

Too many greedy buy to letters with their snouts in the trough, too much easy credit. What goes up must come down.

The discussion on housing in yesterday's programme was very disappointing; as usual the politicians addressed only the supply-side of the equation - "we must build far more houses" they naively and sheepishly bleated. Yes, we should build some more houses, but primarily it is the demand-side that needs to be addressed - there are too many people in the UK and the current housing stock is not being utilised efficiently.

It should be obvious to anyone who looks at the figures that we cannot build our way out of the current housing shortage, and nor indeed should we even try to without also managing demand. In almost every other sector (such as road building) we have belatedly recognised that merely increasing supply is an unworkable and environmentally unsustainable policy and that the best solution is to reduce demand. The time is long overdue that we acknowledged that this is also true of housing.

The two most obvious strategies to reduce demand are to stop the current very high levels of immigration into the UK and to clamp down on multiple home ownership (holiday homes, second homes, etc) and buy-to-let purchases. In the introduction to the discussion even the economic adviser Kate Barker stated that the high influx of migrants is one of the primary reasons behind the current level of demand (along with the trend to smaller households), yet this did not get a single mention in the subsequent discussion - shame on Gavin Esler for not raising immigration and shame on Yvette Cooper, and all Government ministers, for allowing this entirely predictable situation to develop in the first place.

I suggest a number of measures that should be implemented quickly, as a house price crash will simply decimate exactly the people that are already at the rough end of this speculative housing boom - those who have just got 'on the ladder'.
Firstly the Government needs to tax multiple home ownership. Secondly, it needs to provide adequate protection for, plus seriously incentivise, personal pension provision (i.e. not just for public servants).
Gordon Brown's raid on pensions should have brought half of Britain out onto the streets - instead, people were far too occupied in feathering their own nests (often, interestingly, at the expense of their children's!). Since when did it become socially acceptable to be greedy?
Frankly, the UK is in the grip of a debilitating disease - the after effects are yet to be felt. An obsession with property is leaving the hard-working populace trapped in dull, corporate jobs (forget being an artist or a writer, kids), delayed the age at which many (responsible) couples have children, and obliterated the possibility of affording a home on one income.
By the way, I have said forget it, and choose to pay my taxes elsewhere.

Yvette Cooper made me so angry-all this about we are building houses-it's all private building bar 30,000 houising association units(alleged by the introduction and this may be true- and 266 council homes the year before- I thought the figure for 2005 was 100- New Labour is a joke- why didn't the programme have somebody from Defend Council Housing or Austin Mitchell MP with a chance to outline the "Fourth Option"-The state needs to build affordable to buy and rent. The parasites with multiple home ownership need to be seriously taxed-the greedy "buy to let" set made to pay for their disused properties John Baxter Sheffield

And who thought that the population of the UK wasn't of the same mind ... ?

House prices will continue to rise for as long as we continue to have too many children. There will be short term price fluctuations, but nothing can reverse the effect of ever increasing demand. If you want cheap housing then ban immigration and die young, or limit yourself to one child.

Bear in mind that the sustainable population of the UK is between 2 million and 10 million (depending upon lifestyle) yet we have 60 million. Before very long, not only housing but food, water and energy will be unaffordable for about 55 million of us.

Remember that most politicians will be among the more fortunate people who can afford the rising costs.

This started with people buying holiday homes in Devon turning fishing villages into ghost towns during the winter. Then more people with spare cash jumped out of the stock market and into property and finally changes in the pensions laws openly encouraged the senior rich to invest in property..I believe the government has no intention of changing this gluttony by the few, because one day they will die and their estate will be liable for loads of inheritance tax.

Newsnight's housing market discussion,as usual paid deference to the politicians and some obscenely indifferent self-interested opinions.
The needs of the majority of 主播大秀 license payers remained unaddressed. Having witnessed the folly,grotesque greed and lust for over-inflation of house prices in the UK, we made the wise decision to purchase an appartment in Central Paris. This was better value than London and even our native city of Cardiff.
The sharks in the waters of British housing have been well and truly fed , aided by the political need to give people a false sense of wealth. Its all downhill from here - look at America's crash , don't forget - where they go we follow. Instead of an unproductive pointless price inflation, we should have been investing in a stronger social infrastructure such as education, social standards, health and transport.Worthy occupation should be well rewarded. In science for instance the financial incentives are very poor.We should emphasise contribution and co-operation. The fast way to make a buck philosophy, is dangerous and precipitates a heavy backlash - the longer the delay in this - the stronger the force it unleashes. House prices will fall, it is inevitable.
I sincerely hope that the UK sobers up soon before the eventual hangover becomes a serious affliction.

I'm 30 and command an income well in excess of my years.

Over the last three years, I have saved up a deposit and could afford to buy, even in the South East, with a 10% deposit. I have made the conscious decision to continue to rent, however, since I have no confidence that current house prices are in any way sustainable.

Whilst some people blame a lack of supply, others excessive demand (influx in foreign labour, occupancy rates dropping, buy to letters, second homes etc.), others low interest rates... it is my personal opinion that the bubble (and a bubble it is) is being perpetuated by the lenders.

It would have been inconceivable ten years ago that a bank/building society would lend you 5 times your salary, let alone 10. It is in the banking industry's own best interest that they feed the market by lending people more and more money. After all, they are as safe as houses if the market drops and a large number of people end up in negative equity - they still get their pound of flesh and an asset to boot.

Had the banks held firm with the 3.5 times salary limit on mortgages, the housing market would have hit a price ceiling many years ago that first time buyers could still afford. House price inflation and wage inflation would have been strongly linked.

With inflation in China running at around 12%, inflation in the UK will continue to rise due to the volume of imports, prompting interest rate rises and the now inevitable house price crash.

Whilst I'll pity the foolish first timers who have recently jumped onto the housing bandwagon, for fear of being left stranded, I will have no sympathy for the buy to let brigade - I look forward to buying one of their houses when it is repossessed and auctioned by the bank at a bargain basement price in 12-18 months time.

The average house price where I live is 拢200,000 and I can only get a mortgage for 拢165K so I looked at going through the government's First Time Buyers Initative.

However the new properties under the scheme cost 拢254K so I would have to pay stamp duty and a deposit on the whole amount even though I am only getting a mortgage for 拢165K.

The rental market is pretty bad too - 拢450 a month for a dump and 拢800 for somewhere reasonable!

Jomish, Milton Keynes

When I read the comments I can't help but feel a sense of envy, of denied rights. But, the idea that everybody has the right to their own home is relatively recent.Just as long ago as the late fifties very few people dreamed of owning their own home and most dreamed (if at all) of moving out of the cramped Victorean dwellings they shared with their families and getting offered a council home. My own sister ,her husband, and son, lived in one room in a two up two down Victorean house for seventeen years before being offered a pre-fab which she was happy to accept. The 'owning bit' was fueled by dear Maggie with her 'Right to buy' poicies.Good way to empty all that prime development land in Islington, Docklands, etc.etc.(sic). "Cheap at half the price Jack!"
Lets get back to building secure, desirable, Council homes, not estates (ghettos)! People will be housed in decent accommodation for a reasonable price. A sense of pride and community will grow. And the desire to own a mortgage will drop. If they still want to buy, then they must vacate their Council home.
Pie in the sky? Probably? Financial institutions will rule! People are now resourses.

What do you expect... this is a shambole... the economy I mean,,,, when the school and education system is like this, more young people going to art and media than engineering and science, when universities are crynig out loaud for students taking ground braking technogol forward and then there are not many empower with pure science because it is difficult and then the univesities must look for international students becasue they work harder,,, when this country and ity's attiutude toward scocial life is like this when someone buying a jaguare his naighbare asks, HOW DID YOU GET THIS THAT I CAN'T intead of appriciating it and try to buy it for himself if he feels he needing it or likinig it, or if he is not earning enpugh find a solution on how he can earn enough not crutisising those who do, when every body in this country is realy on HOUSING from council and Benefit, when noboy lives to drives this economy forward by contributinjg to it by every possible way, by empower themselves with knowledge and skils, when the only option on KEEPING the IN FILATION LOW is to Increase interst rate,,,,, What more you what me to say,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,WE NEED AREVELOUTION,,,,,,,,,,,, to keep us alive in this fast moving DUNAMIC WORLD ECONOMY,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

"What do you expect... this is a shambole... the economy I mean,,,, when the school and education system is like this,"

Are you referring to the use of written English? If so, you have made your point well.

Yes, the only way a friend of mine could afford to buy his house was for a 'mortgage company' to support a fabricated salary declaration, borrow money from his folks and go interest only with no savings vehicle! Every 0.25% increase in interest sees his mortgage payment increase by 拢45-拢50 a month! If this carries on I wonder how he's going to be able to keep his head above water, oh I forgot, his credit card company keeps lending him money!

How many people are in this situation in the UK??

Whether or not we need a property price crash we aren't going to get it.

The supply of housing is inching upwards with new build, but there is no more than a very slow increase.

By contrast, demand is sky-rocketing. Population up through immigration, weekly commuting requiring city and country homes, second homes for occasional use, second homes as a pension investment, homes empty while people relocate and deal with a cumbersome property market. All these factors are increasing demand, and interest rates and the idea of avaerage price as a multiple of average income have very little to do with it. The market is no longer being driven by people who buy homes to live in them. Instead it is being driven by the use of property as the investment of choice.

Therefore no price crash is to be expected - this is no ubble, but a paradigm shift. No slow-down either. Property prices at the moment are seriously undervalued and must rise substantially. A decade or more of increases well above inflation is a reasonable expectation.

We need a crash in property values, as property cost is an inevitable overhead which must eventually affect costs everywhere along the line - shop rental, staff demanding higher wages so they can afford a house etc.

We also need a sensible policy of negative population growth via restricting immigration numbers to less than those emigrating. This should result in increased supply without turning this beautiful island into a concrete jungle

Some very valid points here but this whole thread could have easily been written 3 or 4 years ago.

Thats how long we have been expecting a crash - it hasn't happened and I can't see one happening at all.

Labour have got to take a very big black mark over housing.

It seems to me that Britain is becoming an enormous dosshouse.

Lodging when you're young may have it's attractions but when you are older, not so good.

Hi. No - we don't need a crash although prices could do with slowing down. Most people can afford a house, the point is they can't afford the house, they want where they want.

I am 25 and own my own home. My husband and I brought in a so-called 'bad' area but as a result have our own roof over our head in an area which is under going major regeneration.

We compromised and it worked out. It is quite upsetting having people say they want the market to crash because they cannot or will not make the same compromise. What about the home owners who own just one home and not the army of holiday homers and buy-to-letters?

i am 25 and the only way i am ever going to get on the property market is with a huge property market crash. property in worcestershire rarely drops below 拢120,000 for a house that is reasonably habitable. i am currently doing a degree after realising that a non graduate job will never buy a house. young people in this country should not be forced to live at home in their 30's because houses for themselves are so expensive. something needs to be done, if its a property crash, so be it!

when i graduate i am seriously considering moving abroad as buying a property in the uk is currently IMPOSSIBLE. two years for the country to sort itself out or im gone, and so are many other graduates if you go by what students say at university!

The problem is that many people have bought more than one property as an investment (buy to let etc). This has worsened the shortage in housing available to first time buyers. The tax system needs to change in order to discourage multiple ownership, which is not fair when many cannot afford to get started on the housing ladder.

We do need a crash to allow first time buyers on the ladder. I believe it is inevitable that it will happen within the next couple of years. First time buyers are overstretching themselves to get on the ladder, along with huge expenditure on credit cards, loans and remortgages we seem to be a nation of debtors, people seem to forget they have to pay all this back. It won't be long before the market is overrun with repossessed properties, so hold tight and wait you could bag yourself a bargain.

To be honest I don't really understand why houses have to appreciate in value (in real terms) at all. We seem to hold a belief that if the house we live in goes up in value, we're in a better position somehow. I question that logic; when your house goes up in value, the house next door to you also goes up in value. The net effect of housing rising above inflation is that everyone has to take more risk in order to move (let alone buy for the first time or re-mortgage). We need a system which limits the appreciation of housing cost to inflation or less (in other words <= 0 real appreciation). Let's boast about the quality of our housing, not the cost.

Firstly in reply to post 333, of course house prices have to increase in real terms. The country's resources and the world's are finite. The nation's population is increasing, of course house prices will rise in the long term.

In general I would say a crash would do more harm than good. If you can't afford to buy where you are, may be you should move to somewhere cheaper, and let market forces take effect to even house price and wage distribution across the country.

House prices have certainly rediculously raised since the boom started, the crash seems vital for first time buyers to allow them to get on to property ladder. While buying & selling home is "business" for few, it a vital necessity for major group!

Those in buying/selling/letting business may need to take the raise and fall, like any other industry faces. While current home owners think, they will be effected negatively by crash, may not entirely be true! They will have to wait for the right time, to save them from facing losses.

Pocily makers need to consider all the stressful situations that a new generation is living in, and atleast try and give them some relief in one basic need

Prices must be realistic!

I fully appreciate the concerns of those who wish to get on the property market, but to wish for a crash will be utterly counter productive, the nations wealth is tied up in property (silly maybe but true) therefore the economy is inextricably linked to property value. (the property sector on the FTSE is also quite big)

If a crash occurs as you all wish, the level of unpaid or unpayable debt increases exponentially, your company may or may not afford to pay your wages, the public sector will certainly not have enough in the coffers to support its current inflated position. There will be a disaster to follow a crash no doubt.

This is not just about house prices, take a wholistic view on things.

I used to own but sold up to go travelling in 2000 believing then that the market had reached a peak and would go down. It never has and, though I work as a PA in the City, I have long since been priced out of the market. To buy the place I currently rent, I would have to pay at least 拢1000 more a month in mortgage than I do in rent and simply wouldn't be able to get the multiple required to buy it. My lifestyle also means I have struggled to save the deposit. However, since deciding I couldn't continue waiting for an unforthcoming crash, I have looked into 100% mortgages and have discovered that, even in London, there are pockets of affordable places. Woolwich and Plumstead have a good stock of 2 bed flats at circa 130k. Ok, not particularly nice areas yet but I've had to accept that I'm not going to be able to stay in the kind of area I rent in and be able to buy when 1 bedroom flats start at 210k. Whilst I will forever wonder at how prices are continuing to rise, I am going to have to take the plunge and buy in an up and coming area. It is still possible, just, if you can change your "wish list". Having to borrow 100% though means I definitely don't want a housing crash as I'm in trouble if there is one. One thing that does concern me is that affordable housing is only being allocated to "key" workers, yet where would the economy be without all the office workers and other behind the scenes relatively low paid workers who, whilst not necessarily "key" are still important?

A lack of suitable affordable housing to buy is the issue here. The rental market or 'social housing' is generally the undesirable alternative. History has proven that home ownership has always been more desirable than renting in the longer term, why should we accept any difference now ? To deny progress is backwards and oppressive.

The lack of suitable housing is possibly down to many factors, including :
Supply of suitable houses
Demand for houses
Interest Rate
Mortgaging and money lending policies of the banks
Estate Agents who sell / flog the houses
More single people meaning more single bedroom flats are needed instead of family homes
Elderly widows / widowers living in large houses as single occupants

There are many ways to address these issues, to abate the current rediculous situation :

Build more houses - Council houses possibly, but the demand is for buying not rental
Prevention of second home ownership - Make it less favourable, possibly with taxes, but at the least make it equal to the first property.

Make buy-to-let less desirable - Rental occupants have to make greater payments, to cover overheads, and extra infrastructure required for rental when contrasted to self ownership. This contributes to relative poverty. Make this representative to costs borne by the house owner instead of the cost being borne by the rental occupant. Many houses are bought specifically for buy-to-let purposes, by pricing out potential buyers. Maybe make Council tax more applicable to the house owner than the occupant. Is is feasible to make the council tax payments payable by the lenders, ie the banks ? They have been prepared to lend more, should there be a catch ? A sort of ethical community charge for the loan sharks to contribute

Permit more house building - partly addressed in recent Planning white paper

Better bank regulation to prevent ludicrous mortgages and money lending being the norm from the loan sharks

Encourage elderly widows in large houses to downsize - Build bespoke houses for elderly, bungalows take up more land than conventional houses, can this be addressed effectively ? Would this equate to less land being used for single occupant home owners ? Provide incentives for smaller houses for elderly. Council tax credits etc, but only for small and properties specified on a bespoke estate. This will also help them to heat their own houses in winter and avoid them injuring themselves on stairs etc. Getting suitable housing for the elderly has got to be better than care homes. 主播大秀 help and 主播大秀 Care is a good, but they would also benefit from more suitable housing. Their home is of security to them, as well as the younger generation if they got the opportunity. Many houses are sold to pay for their care when the elderly become incapacitated. They live many years in the intervening period when they could downsize, which would also be better for them on many occasions. Avoid both these situations by providing single occupant residential properties for ownership specifically for elderly. Could bespoke estates be built with incentives such as lower council tax ? These should have better provision for home help and home care support. This would also help facilitate better care. They should also be more secure and safe, as they would not be so isolated. They would benefit from community security in such an area, maybe with a community support officer for that area to catch rogue traders, burglars and the like who prey specifically on isolated elderly. This is likely to become increasingly significant and important as the baby boomer generation become elderly and infirm.

people are just not buying.The market is bad at the moment.We have our house up for sale.Its been on for a month and only 2 people have looked round.Most of the houses around here have been on the market for months.

Yes we need a house price crash. It seems as though the only people that are going to be able to buy property in England one day will be suoer rich foreighners and inlanders.

I like to think of myself as a modest invester and even I am finding it difficult to invest in property. There is going to be no hope for the next generation to get onto the property market unless they have already inherited a cashed house.

Bring on the house price crash!!!

Don't see how house prices can't crash.. There is after all a finite number of people here and despite what the media portray the population is actually in decline with regards to housing needs. The baby boomer years (which have the greatest in number are now starting to reach the age where they are needing to be cared for, be that family moving in, them moving into family or moving into sheltered/nursing smaller houses.

The large influx in East Europeans are not wanting to be like the declining native population and to save money to send home cram themselves into small properties to save money, know of two who even bead share working alternate shifts. Which is something we鈥檙e all going to be encouraged (maybe not to such extremes as bed sharing,) to do as utility and fuel prices go up to combat global warming. Having just moved from sharing with 6 people to just the two of us the bill difference is phenomenal.

I may be being paranoid but I find it a bit of a weird coincidence that house prices have boomed as all these DIY/Fix up your house programs and books have become the norm. many many 鈥渘ormal鈥� folk have gone into the property market on buy to let etc. have the numbers of first time buyers gone down by that much over the period?? Hmm me thinks not, I have the feeling that all these buy to lets were owned by large scale property owners who saw the writing on the wall and have orchestrated through the media to get rid of their deadweight un-rentable properties at inflated prices, and their good properties similarly bumped up in price so they can sit on their assets in another form, speed up the crash then they can buy more during the crash when most of the small scale property developers are flailing with negative equity and so unable to expand鈥�.Bit Cynical maybe.. but that鈥檚 me I guess..

Other factors, hmmm increased interest, higher bankruptcy rates than the last recession, people living at home longer, decreased reproduction rates, who needs a bigger place unless having kids its just wasted heating costs, so people move on slower even when on the market.

And God forbid if bird flu or some other disaster hits, the population will go down faster so more empty houses available. As will the end of the Olympics as all the investors for a quick buck there will get out pronto.

I have no plans to join the property market until after it crashes, and my advice to anyone in it, if your struggling to keep up with payments get out, if you鈥檙e buying to rent on a small scale, get out.

[I wrote this to my MP, who did not respond]

I have never written to an MP before. I live in @@@@@@@ where I rent a
property. Im a professional, earning about 拢30k per year. Ive worked in
London and Leeds.
I am so unbelievably frustrated about the present housing situation its
untrue.
I live in a nice house, which I share and rent for 拢650.00 pcm.
I look into the initiatives every year, talk to the housing
associations, estate agents, house builders, Joseph Rowntree trust,
other trusts, and 主播大秀buy agents for your government schemes.
I always end up, no nearer to purchasing a home and feeling angry at
the state of the housing market in the UK.
Only one of the government initatives is barely affordable, and that is
the FTBI scheme. Whereupon, I would be required to purchase around 50%
of the property. Paying equity on a sliding scale after the first three
years.
Every other scheme, where I can purchase a larger percentage of the
property, and then pay rent on the remaining percentage retained by the
government, or trust, is almost always nearly as expensive as taking
out a 100% mortgate on the property. And so is therefore totally
useless to me.
However, there is only one FTBI accomodation available in Yorkshire.
[Even if there were, I doubt I would be allowed to move somewhere like
Skipton, because according to Craven County Council, I will, Im sure,
probably have to have family, work, some other form of ties to the
area, to live there]
Year after year, Ive waited for something, anything!
The market to crash, the government to actually come up with some sort
of affordable solution.
拢80K gets me a one bedroomed flat above a shop in [crappy] town centre.
[I cannot think of anything more depressing]
I am spending tens of thousands of pounds in rent, spread over a number
of years. You have doubled my council tax, I have nothing to fall back
on, pension etc, because I cannot afford it. You have tightened certain
loopholes regarding Income tax over the last few years for someone in
my position. Never before have I felt my pockets to be so 鈥榩inched鈥�.
The state of things for someone in my position are just beyond
frustrating. I am a 34 year old unmarried male with no dependants. I
see Yvette Cooper, on the news, prattling on about how things are
changing, will change. Spin. Lies.
I am so angry with your government, for letting this situation
degenerate to its present state, its untrue. I will never ever vote
Labour again.

Yours, Utterly Dejectedly.

This is one of the biggest issues around at the moment and we risk alienating vast groups of hard working young people who may never be able to afford a house. The prices must be made to come down. I feel the problem is to a large extent a fault of the mortgage lenders, solicitors, surveyors and estate agents whose vested interest lies with higher prices. Mortgage lenders should bring down the lending limits and stop 100% mortgages. This could be done in a progressive way to avoid a crash if at all possible.

I have never written to an MP before. I live in ***, Yorkshire, where I rent a
property. Im a professional, earning about 拢30k per year. Ive worked in
London and Leeds.
I am so unbelievably frustrated about the present housing situation its
untrue.
I live in a nice house, which I share and rent for 拢650.00 pcm.
I look into the initiatives every year, talk to the housing
associations, estate agents, house builders, Joseph Rowntree trust,
other trusts, and 主播大秀buy agents for your government schemes.
I always end up, no nearer to purchasing a home and feeling angry at
the state of the housing market in the UK.
Only one of the government initatives is barely affordable, and that is
the FTBI scheme. Whereupon, I would be required to purchase around 50%
of the property. Paying equity on a sliding scale after the first three
years.
Every other scheme, where I can purchase a larger percentage of the
property, and then pay rent on the remaining percentage retained by the
government, or trust, is almost always nearly as expensive as taking
out a 100% mortgate on the property. And so is therefore totally
useless to me.
However, there is only one overpriced block of flats in Leeds, the only FTBI accomodation available in Yorkshire.
[Even if there were more, I doubt I would be allowed to move somewhere like
Skipton, because according to Craven County Council, I will, Im sure,
probably have to have family, work, some other form of ties to the
area, to live there]
Year after year, Ive waited for something, anything!
The market to crash, the government to actually come up with some sort
of affordable solution. [And I firmly believe the government has a responsibility, morally, and leagally, to make sure affordable housing is available to my and other generations] 拢100K gets me a one bedroomed flat or bedsit above a shop in a very poor norhthern town centre.
[I cannot think of anything more depressing]
I am spending tens of thousands of pounds in rent, spread over a number
of years. You have doubled my council tax, I have nothing to fall back
on, pension etc, because I cannot afford it. Never before have I felt my pockets to be so 鈥榩inched鈥�.
The state of things for someone in my position are just beyond
frustrating. I am a 34 year old unmarried male with no dependants. I
see Yvette Cooper, on the news, talking about how things are
changing, will change. Spin. Lies.
I am very angry with this government, for letting this situation
degenerate to its present state.
I will never ever vote
Labour again.

Channel 4's despatches programme 30th July was most illuminating.

Yours, Utterly Dejectedly.

Been renting for many years awaiting house price correction. Lived through three house market crashes - people have short memories. During the crash in the eighties, house prices took 8 years to recover. This time it will be much worse - the tap is dripping already and will burst. Everyone has been joining in the housing party but the party is about to end. Look at America.
Time to cash up and don't put more than 拢30,OOO in any financial institution as even Banks can go bust.

I think that a crash in the Market is going to leave a hell of a lot of people bank-rupt. Its a no win situation and yet again one in which the 'middle classes' loose out on. My husband and i are both Civil servants and not on a 'bad' wage, yet as most do in this day and age we have got in debt in our youth and have managed to lump the majority of this onto out mortgage. A crash in the market will certainly benefit people on low incomes (who lets face it get plenty of tax credits etc) and first time buyers, it wont effect the wealthy, but as usual its the poor middle class man that ends up buggered, and loosing his job and home as a result of becoming bankrupt.

Well what a mess its all become, no one and I mean no one should buy any property at todays prices esp FTBs. The crash has already started and i'm afraid any buyer from the last 4 years will be in big trouble. If you can't pay a standard repayment mortgage then you can't afford the house / flat and don't be tempted by this interest only mortgage. If you do interest only then your getting what they call in the USA a sub prime mortgage. We understand it to be people with bad credit ratings well in really it means low credit rating i.e. can't afford a repayment mortgage because of high house prices. If half the mortgages that were interest only were stopped in the past year then there would have been a slide in house prices prob in the region of 8%. So all you renters that feel stuck don't worry because your landlord has prob got 7 to 10 houses that he has nicked money out to fund a deposit for the next one, in reality you are currently better off. It will take until the end of the year for the banks to stop doing interest only BTL mortgages then the effects of the credit crunch will hit and with rising energy cost inflation will go up so interest rates will go up. This will then trigger lots of BTL and speculators to sell up quick(I think its started already but slowly). The pressure on estate agents will be massive and there will be no buyers because all you renters will just sit back wait a couple of years for the dust to settle then get your repayment mortgage at 3 to 4 times your income. Some of you will have to move because your current land lord will be trying to bail out but then as no one is buying the banks will foreclose on him and they have to give you time to move out before they can sell the property. Oh hang on there will be no one buying in a sliding market, you may get very lucky and the bank may offer you a mortgage on the property yourself. Stick to your guns and don't let them charge you to much for the property as your are now providing them with a service. Remember you may not think it now but your BTL landlord through his greed has helped the crash be bigger harder and faster than it should have been. He's helped the banks bankrupt themselves and helped you to buy an affordable house in the not to distant future. The fundamentals are not sound because fundamental financial spinning is unsound. Correction correction correction or hang on its a soft landing isn't it no wait its a bubble deflating slowly. No its a full on multiple car crash that's spinning downwards out of there control.

Sorry, to write this here, but I can't wait to see the housing market crash. I can not afford a house. The landlords do not have pitty with me too. To me a house as a real value, thats what I want to pay. I am sick in Cambridge, to see buy and let owners dominating the market.

Yes,yes, YES.
I'm a first time buyer, with a decent job for a *newbie in the job industry* if you like. I have multiple dreams that I can only achieve if I own my own house in a respectable area. I might just have to live in a wendy tent at this rate!

Why do they keep letting people lose thier homes.
I am a single Mum with a good job and I have a shared ownership scheme house, I went on the property ladder because I wanted an investment for my son, but if they keep putting these rates up I wont be able to keep it! There shall be continued debt in this country. They have to see what they are doing to families.

Definitely.Then we could all stop banging on about the awful cost of comfortable accomodation.

Those people who have self certified (AKA lied your arse off to get the mortgage in the first place) will be hit hardest 鈥� and I have no sympathy! Think 鈥� if you hadn鈥檛 lied on your mortgage application form then you wouldn鈥檛 be in financial trouble now! Forgetting the fact that you鈥檝e pushed prices up again artificially for the rest of us FTB's!.

Much of the housing market inflation is caused by the "Buy to let " brigade. Many starter homes for young couples are taken by people adding to their property portfolio. All they have to do is put down a deposit and state that the mortgage can be covered by rents .Although profits are taxed I am sure creative accounting can mediate this, maintenence etc. I canot see why the numbers of properties a landlord can hold shouldn't be restricted or penalties put in place to make it less lucrative.I have had to find a deposit to help my eldest son get onto the ladder. This is not easy when I have another son to also consider and we are near retirement

There's always going to be idiots that buy at today's inflated rates! (For example, a two bedroom "hole" on just over an acre of land was up for sale for 拢850k!!!! some Pratt bought it!) We are having to leave the area we are currently in and leave quickly before our daughter starts school, as we cannot find a place to live that we can afford! When we do, it's snapped up by developers and buy-to-letters at over the asking price! what's the point! We've been renting for over 5 years, and the rent we pay is ridiculous! also, the "new builds" don't have any sort of garden to speak of, so they cram you all in to a sardine can and expect you to tolerate that for the rest of your days.....don't people want space, a place to sit (on those rare sunny days in the UK) and breathe without listening to your neighbours talking in their living rooms (or worse in their bedrooms) and without having the whole estate watching you in your garden! It's ridiculous, so yes, a LARGE and QUICK crash please! (I wouldn't mind, but whats so good about this country anyway that is making it unaffordable to be here??? But that's a whole other issue!!!)

This post may seem emotional. I don鈥檛 like posting such general rant type messages, but Im desperate to try and get something done. Im no economist.
I also hate complaining, and, [normal English reaction?] feel as though im doing something wrong by doing so, however;

It is now in Gordon Browns best interests to keep the housing market inflated. It makes up a large percentage of our countries economy.

He does not a give a sh#t about people who don鈥檛 own a house. He only wants to remain in power, knowing he will get his votes, from the people who think their inflated house prices have suddenly made them all rich.
I hate what he has done to me and my family. I am so bitter about it.

You can quote all the complex financial equations at me you want. Im not listening. I cannot listen. Im screwed for the rest of my life, because I only earn Circa 30k pa. [And I dont know whether to buy, a crappy bedsit for 拢100k!!! or keep paying my escalating rent.]
However, at 34 years old im loathe to overextend myself and buy a flat, that just five and a half years ago would have cost 38k, and is now up for sale at 115k!!!!!]

The blame squarely rests on the shoulders of the ex-chancellor, now prime minister, Gordon Brown.
As stated here, Brown, in his 1997 budget speech, stated I will not let house prices get out of control. So either hes a liar, or a failure. [His governments game plan will be to refute this im sure.]
Labour, have ensured that I, [and every other person aged in their twenties and thirties]
and my brothers, aged between 25-34, will, probably never own a house, and certainly be a lot poorer than our parents are. [When I was young Labour were all about decreasing the divide between the rich and the poor鈥�.My mum never got tax credits for working and raising us!! Or all the benefits available today!]
If you are in your twenties or thirties and do not own a house. DO NOT VOTE THIS EXPLETIVE BROWN BACK INTO OFFICE.
I WISH SOMEONE WOULD ORGANISE A FIRST TIME BUYERS MARCH IN LONDON.

IF ALL FIRST TIME BUYERS STOPPED BUYING. THE MARKET WOULD EVENTUALLY COME BACK DOWN. IT AMAZES ME THAT PEOPLE WHO EARN 拢25K PA ARE STILL GETTING MORGATES FOR 120K+

Stop buying houses. All the ftb鈥檚 should stick together, we鈥檇 be a powerful lobby. I鈥檇 sign a petition that stated I will never vote labour again, because Gordon Brown has, basically, in a large part, ruined my life, by destroying any chance I had of owning a house. [They鈥檝e had ten years, now theyre asking for ten more?!!] The biggest house building companies that are landbanking hundreds of thousands of sites, to ensure prices remain high, are, directly or indirectly, some of the biggest contributors to the Labour party.

We should all hold Gordon Brown personally responsible.

This is obviously a group of like minded people. A protest about the situation:

we sold our house 1 year ago believing a crash was inevitable. It has slowed but not crashed. we now live in a 2 bed flat in Hartlepool Marina with no cupboard space for lifes essentials like ironing boards hoover etc.but beautiful views! and nice community. Both our children are at university and will cost us approx 90,000 to pay for accomodation, fees, food etc.. we have worked like dogs all our lives, scimped and saved, feared unemployment and my husband has always worked abroad, no job locally, we see him 2 months out of the year. our house was all we had for our old age, now our children could be potentially homeless yet if they had got pregnant at 16 they would be no worse off!the only jobs available in north east seem to be supermarkets and call centres, hardly a degree is needed and loads of debt. a future generation will be having children in their 40s or the new generation will be born to teenage mothers in white tracksuits who cannot even construct a sentance. I dread the future!

House prices are unlikely to crash because they are being kept afloat by all the potential first time buyers - the 358 people who have posted on this blog. There's a queue of first time buyers waiting for a dip in house prices, so as soon as something becomes affordable it's snapped up. For this reason house prices will never crash.

The housing market illustrates the worst type of capitalism: those that have make more money at the expense of those that do not have. The root of the problem lies with people that buy property as investments. It's a simple redistribution of wealth - renters are forced to pay the mortgages of people with two or more houses.

The government is powerless to stop this, and it is occurring all over the globe. I have just left Britain to live in Australia, because Britain is simply too expensive for people of my generation (mid-30s). But here it is exactly the same situation. Governments are guilty of not having tighter controls on sub-prime lending, but they can't stop rich people buying for investments. It's just the nature of capitalism - it's not moral, ethical, or sustainable, but investors don't care about that......

I find it is unfair to homeowner like me that everyone want to have a housing crash to get into the property ladder.

I came to the UK nearly 10 years ago as a 15 years old who had nothing with no English. I then met my husband at work. We started our marriage life empty handed with my husband's debt from his student life. Luckily, we stayed at his sister's house for 2 years. We just worked day and night, not going out and save every penny to pay off debt and build up the deposit for the house. We got a lovely 2 beds flat after that and an wonderful career.

Everything is possible. You just have to work very hard for it and have to compromise things such as holiday, designer goods, fancy cars and those endless night of partying for a few years. You can have all of that later.

I believe if I can, then everyone can. Sometime, you just have to step back and think how luck we are that we don't live in a war zone. We have bank that give us mortgage. In my native country there is no such thing as mortgage.

Don't penalise people who work hard for their money, paying taxes so that the goverment can help people in need.

I am a 25 year old single mum and have always worked full time. I have had my own house but had to sell due to increase in interest rates. I am on 21k a year which isn't bad but can not afford to buy. Prices are so unrealistic and it is scandalous that I am unable to buy at my age. Unless there is a crash, I can count my chances of owning a home as very slim.
There's no future in this country for our children the way things are going, if I can't afford to buy then what is going to be available for my daughter when she is older.

What has the UK house prices and Global warming got in common?

Answer they are both guaranteed to bring out experts on both sides who really don't know for sure what's going to happen.

The truth is the climate is getting warmer and UK house prices are over heating. This means that both systems will probably correct at some point although the amount of hot air around this particular debate who knows what will happen? One things for sure the experts as per usual cannot agree.

Who wants a housing crash? Well, I believe it is everyone that arrived too late for the party, either because they didn鈥檛 have the money or understanding at the right time or simply weren鈥檛 born early enough. So, those trying to get on the ladder are the very same people as those that did. Put another way, those complaining are those that failed, for whatever reason, to be in the right place at the right time.

Why is property too expensive? One problem in the housing market is, as has been outlined in the previous blogs, those that could afford property when it was at a reasonable price, bought it and then bought more. I wonder how many bloggers without property would also have bought more than one property if they could have done, or got into re-development a few years ago. I think we, as a nation, have re-defined our values from the bygone era of property being what we live in and the Markets where we make money in. Also, we, generally, all want a 鈥榗omfortable鈥� life. Most couples now work. This is a social development which has generated greater household wealth, which, in turn, increases our buying power. More disposable income causes market forces to counter-act by increasing the values of that which we desire 鈥� in this case, property.

Where are all the houses anyway? This one is more interesting. There was quite a lot of affordable housing (in relation to national income) 15-20 years ago. But the government then introduced 'buy to let', allowing those that could to soak up available property. Further to that, 'right to buy' snapped up all the authority housing which is now desperately needed by lower income earners and other, now quite prevalent, social groups. How many ex-authority houses are now, or have been, on the market since the original owners purchased them? Interestingly, some councils replaced authority houses with 'Association' housing schemes, a shared partnership with councils and privateers allowing local council to save money on maintenance and make on income - very shrewd but rather capitalistic and not very sociable at all. Also, wages have risen greatly over the last 15 years, creating more wealth. So, the Govt, local coucils and us have stripped the market of housing. I agree, with Matt (blog 359) when he says that it shows the worst type of capitalism. 鈥榃orst鈥� because it is our fundamental need to provide safe shelter for ourselves and family, yet it is us, as a society, that is causing the problem.

What if we did have a housing crash? This would be very bad for us as a nation. We now have very cheap basic commodities and luxury items. Food and clothing is shipped or flown in and sold very cheaply in supermarkets. We can buy household goods from Asia at ever decreasing prices, such as flat screen TVs and PCs/Laptops. Wages are continually going up in most areas of the UK market. Our currency is worth twice as much as the US dollar. We are in a very (maybe too much so) strong economic position. The UK is reportedly the most expensive place to live in Europe but still desirable. All of this is propped up, in part, by our housing market, which makes up a lot of our borrowing which adds value to companies which values us as a nation. Take it away and, market forces again, our economy falls down. But that鈥檚 ok because we can now buy a house 60% cheaper. We won鈥檛 be able to afford the interest rate though, nor will we be able to fill it with furniture and forget grumbling about public transport because it would be the only way we could afford to travel as our car will be extortionate to buy and run.

So, what should happen? We need to make single property ownership attainable again. It is a basic need and a natural aspiration that everyone should be able to achieve. Those with one property should be very happy. Negative equity only occurs if you want to realise it at the wrong time but if you have a house, well done. Those with more than one property in the UK should be highly taxed on subsequent properties. It is a very large luxury item and as a society, we should work together for the greater good. We pay tax for society already in every other area. This action would affect the property market in a controlled way. Making property afordable and sustaining what we have.

I am 37 yrs old, do not yet own a house, earn 31k pa and can鈥檛 afford to get on the ladder. It is us as a society and our desire to have everything at any price, getting into debt if required, that is at the heart of our current dilemma. I don鈥檛 mind paying rent, but do care that it goes to a private owner, spending it as they wish. I would sooner be in a council house, paying to society, until I could afford to buy my own, whenever that could be.

I think if house prices stay level now for a year or two and do not increase this will suffice in people salaries catching up and more will be able to get on the market.

I have a flat with a 95% mortgage and if prices go down i will have negative equity. I will therefore not be able to move up for a long time and if this happens to lots of people (which im sure it will especially those who are in thier first place and struggled to get there) then the market will become stagnant and no-one will be able to move anywhere.

Stamp duty should be raised to propertys over 拢200k.

Salaries need to go up!

Bring it on! If you were mug enough to get yourself into massive debt to buy at these crazy prices, then tough, I've no sympathy. It's idiots like you that pushed prices up to such stupid levels to begin with. Can't wait for the crash, I've been looking forward to it for the last few years.

We really do need a housing market crash, i can currently not afford to buy a house in a reasonable area with the market as it is and i and my boyfriend have what would be considered as good jobs.

LEARNING ABOUT MONEY
An essential part of this financially-dominated economy is the way money is created. Despite, the central role that money plays in all our lives, there is an appalling ignorance about it.

This ignorance is caused by the mystique which has been fostered by bankers and financiers that money matters are far too difficult for ordinary people to understand. They have spread the idea, aided and abetted by economists, that understanding and controlling money should, therefore, be left to the experts.

The truth is that the essential facts about money are simple. When they are known by the general public they will start asking questions and demanding that the government should do something about reforming the injustices which bankers are allowed to perpetrate. There will be a demand for governments to right the wrongs which banker control of money is causing.

5 WAYS THE MAN-IN-THE-STREET IS BAMBOOZLED
1. HE THINKS THAT MONEY IS CREATED BY THE GOVERNMENT, THROUGH THE MINT AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND, AND IT CONSISTS LARGELY OF NOTES AND COINS.
FACT -- Only 3% of money is in the form of notes and coins created by the government.

2. HE BELIEVES THAT WHEN BANKS LEND MONEY THEN THE MONEY WHICH IS BORROWED IS THAT WHICH OTHER BANK CUSTOMERS HAVE DEPOSITED.
FACT -- The money one borrows from a bank is not depositors' money at all. It is new money created by the simple process of writing the amount of the loan on the credit side of the borrower's account. Ninety seven percent of all money in circulation originates in this way. If banks actually lent their depositors' money it would not be available when they wanted it. If someone wanted to draw out money and was told, "Sorry, we've lent it to Joe Blow," he would be justifiably annoyed.

In other words, 97% of money is not "real" money at all but credit, just figures in a bank's ledger or computer. It is created out of nothing. Yet is used and accepted as real money. To all intents and purposes it is money. Borrowers buy houses with it, pay wages and buy raw materials with it, and spend it in many ways. Yet it is just figures in a ledger transferred from one account to another. It is called various things -- credit, bank-money, number-money, cheque-money, debt-money, electronic money. Whatever it is called, it is used and trusted because people know they can obtain real money, notes and coins, if they want.

3. HE BELIEVES THAT THERE IS STRICT CONTROL AND REGULATION BY THE GOVERNMENT, OF BANKS AND BUILDING SOCIETIES.
FACT -- The belief that there are strict controls over what banks and building societies can and cannot do is also false. There are no statutory deposits which banks at one time had to lodge with the Bank of England. There are no fractional reserves of currency to be held by a bank as security for loans. All that has gone in the deregulation so beloved by financiers and, now, politicians. The only stipulation now is that banks must deposit with the Bank of England, 0.35% of their assets, which consist mainly of the loans they have made. This paltry percentage shows that borrowers have no real security, no proper regulations to protect them. The banks, however, have the property of borrowers, pledged as collateral, as security.

4. HE BELIEVES THAT THE INTEREST HE PAYS FOR THE LOAN IS A LEGITIMATE CHARGE BECAUSE IT IS OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY HE IS BORROWING.
FACT -- Interest is considered to be a recompense for lenders giving up the use of their money, for the sacrifice they make by not spending it on satisfying immediate needs or pleasures.

This may be so for depositors but it is not so for banks which create money out of thin air when they make a loan. They are charging a tribute -- interest -- for money which did not exist before the loan was made. So they are getting money, in the form of interest, for nothing. It would be legitimate for them to charge a fee for administering the loan but that would be far smaller than the interest they charge.

5. HE IS PERSUADED THAT IF HE CANNOT PAY BACK HIS DEBT THEN IT IS RIGHT THAT THE BANK SHOULD TAKE HIS PROPERTY TO REIMBURSE ITSELF.
FACT -- The borrower owes a debt which has to be paid, in regular installments, plus the interest, or legal penalties come into force. If the borrower defaults -- cannot pay -- then his property which he put up as security for the loan is legally confiscated and used to reimburse the bank, no matter what distress and hardship is suffered by the borrower, be it the loss of a home or a business. Whatever the reason, debts must be paid, and on time.

Remember, though, this money was created out of thin air. It was debt-money.

REMEMBER -- 97% OF ALL MONEY STARTS AS DEBT
Most people, however, are in debt. The total amount owed is greater than the total money supply. Sixty per cent of debt is for mortgages. Business debt is increasing as more is borrowed to keep enterprises afloat with the intensification of competition caused by the global market.

There is a chronic shortage of ready money, which means there is not sufficient purchasing power to buy all the goods and services on offer. This endemic shortage of spending money is brought about because of the debt burden that most people have.

If they want to keep their homes and businesses they must make regular payments to service their debts.

This is the basic reason that governments are loath to raise direct taxes. It reduces still further people's spending money and the total demand for goods and services. As a result not enough government revenue is raised from taxation to meet essential services.

THE NATIONAL DEBT
The amount of the taxation shortfall is called the budget deficit and is compensated for by government borrowing from the private sector, mainly from banks.

The total of this debt is called the national debt. It has to be paid back, eventually, by the taxpayers. In practice, when the Treasury Bonds, which the government sells as a means of borrowing money from the private sector, are due to be paid, the government issues new bonds -- borrows new money -- to pay back the old ones plus interest.

Let us consider the money which the government obtains from banks buying Treasury Bonds. Where does it come from? You've guessed it. It is created out of thin air, in the same way as the money for your mortgage was. It isn't real money. It's credit, debt-money. When financial enterprises such as pension funds or insurance companies buy Treasury Bonds, also called gilts, the money used is the savings of their customers so it is money already in existence being recycled, used again.

The money banks use to buy gilts is not. It's created on the spot, out of nothing. So the government is in hock to the banks for money which did not exist until it was borrowed.

At this point you are most likely asking the same question which many people are now asking. If the banks can create money out of nothing to lend to the government as debt, with all the burdens that places on the taxpayer, why on earth doesn't the government create money for itself, at least for public services, and remove the burden of having to borrow money?

Whether we want a housing crash or not, we are going to get one. The only thing delaying it is the rubbish stats produced by increasingly desperate vested interests: lenders - RICS - estate agents and this government (eg the utterly ridiculous notion that inflation is running at only c 2.2%).

4 investment banks have produced reports in the last 12 months driving a coach and horses through the mantra that there is a lack of supply. There isnt.

In addition, the credit crunch is already savaging the range of mortgage products available. And the simple fact is that the average salary in the UK is c 23 K and in London 33 K: People can only afford what they can afford - and they will get less and less 'help' from lenders in future.

Check out recent Panorama and Dispatches reports - flats are falling in city centres at rates of 40% already. The unique difference about the recent boom is the strength of the vested interests in keeping it going for so long.

Yes, we need a housing market crash, if you have a home, does it really matter what its worth? You have your own home. For those renting, the rent can almost be as dear as a mortgage, yet you need the deposit and its harder to get lending, so they need the housing to crash. This will benefit everyone. A house should be a home not an investment. The only ones that benefit having a home as an investment is the rich! Not, the average hard worker.

To buy a house in london is like a dream to go to moon. This crazy market price must come down. We need a immediate crash, otherwise people has to live in the street liek US.

Nationally the UK housing market has to a certain extent, positively fallen 1% within the first quarter of 2008. A volatile housing market will discourage a large amount of investors, purely because when an economic recession or instability occurs, it tends to push investors towards safety measures i.e. by maintaining their funds as 鈥榗ash鈥�. As an opportunist, I recommend that the south-east of England will continue to achieve long-term capital gains; also I strongly deem that discounts of up to 20% can be achieved nationally within 2008-2009.

I can not believe the state of the UK housing market. Our generation NEED a housing crash, we simply can not compete with the wealth gained by the 'Baby boom' generation.

This country is promoting easy gained wealth by allowing the BUY to LET market to succeed which abuses people who have no other option. What ever happened to people gaining wealth through hard work (take out a 2nd job)? I should not have to pay in to someone elses bank account!!!

I am 27 have worked hard and have a degree to my name but have no chance of buying a house or raising a family.

Either I quit everything I have worked hard for and claim all the benefits I'd be entitled to or I leave this GREED infested country.

Simply put PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO MAKE MONEY AT OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPENSE!!!!!!!! EG Tesco would not be allowed to charge 拢100 for a loaf of bread if they were the only supermarket around!!

This whole generation should leave and that would teach the goverment a lesson for not acting against this abuse. Australia, Canada or New Zealand anyone?

Referring to landlords with more than one property:

I can not believe the state of the UK housing market. Our generation NEED a housing crash, we simply can not compete with the wealth gained by the 'Baby boom' generation.

This country is promoting easy gained wealth by allowing the BUY to LET market to succeed which abuses people who have no other option. What ever happened to people gaining wealth through hard work (take out a 2nd job)? I should not have to pay in to someone elses bank account!!!

I am 27 have worked hard and have a degree to my name but have no chance of buying a house or raising a family.

Either I quit everything I have worked hard for and claim all the benefits I'd be entitled to or I leave this GREED infested country.

Simply put PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO MAKE MONEY AT OTHER PEOPLE'S EXPENSE!!!!!!!! EG Tesco would not be allowed to charge 拢100 for a loaf of bread if they were the only supermarket around!!

This whole generation should leave and that would teach the goverment a lesson for not acting against this abuse. Australia, Canada or New Zealand anyone?

I can clearly understand why people would want the market to crash. But for people like myself, who have scrimped and saved to get on the property ladder, to just have it collapse and therefore i loose equity on my home and end up paying more mortgage than its actually worth, a crash would leave us in more debt than what our house is worth. And to answer billy's qusetion, it may not matter to you how much your house is worth but if you have paid 100k (for example), and then the market crashes the property value will go down causing us to pay more than its worth which means we can never pay that money back.I don't have a great paying job and neither does my partner we have just borrowed under our means but we have had to miss alot just to keep a roof above our head and food in our cuboards. If the market crashes all of our friends who simply get loan and credit cards after loan will be able to buy a house when they simply haven't worked for it. I do have full sympathy for those people who simply cannot afford to get on the ladder but i have no sympthy for those who spend their money like its dust and then whinge about not getting a foot on.

Hi, It appears the only people who benefit from a rise in house prices are

(1) People who downsize
(2) Mortgage Lenders
(3) Estate Agents
(4) Legal convanancing if charged on the cost of the property
(5) The Government through stamp duty etc

and i don't know how many of the No1's there are,

Example -

If your house is worth 拢300000 now and you want to buy one costing 拢400000 then you need to obtain 拢100000 however if all properties fell by 33.3% then the calculation would be

Your house would be worth 拢200000 and the one you want to buy would cost 拢266800 only leaving you to find 拢66800 a saving of 拢33200

Your mortgage lender would be lending less and you wouldn't have to pay so much in interest

The estate agents while still keeping the same % charge would get less because the overall amount would be lower

The Legal fee may be the same depending on how the charges are setup

The stamp duty if applicable would be less, and any VAT payable on the services above would probably be reduced as the overall expenditure would be less

yes i think we realy need becuse the young people even cant think to buy property see the housees pricies some people they have more then ten propertys and otherhand people they even get mortgae this totley unfair