Immigration, divorce and nimbyism are the three factors that have kept demand racing ahead of supply for years

REALLY?

I would have thought the main factors were cheap credit and people investing in property rather than stocks and shares beacuse of the ridiculously cheap credit.

Rob, London

rob, retford, notts

David from Manchester are you a vested interest by any chance?

All I will to you is that a rich, crowded place with real firms/products and a fantastic living standard is now experiencing its worst ever property recession - I present California, USA.

We are heading for one almighty crash IMO - just look at the leading indicator for recession - the gold price (yes I do own gold, and I rent where I live, and I feel wonderfully smug)

jonathan tedd, marlow,

I echo the gringe's comments, this bubble has been built on debt, and someone somewhere has to pay it back

To David in Manchester "Stop your dangerous waiting game and BUY BUY BUY before prices shoot up even further!!
last time there was a boom, there was a bust, and the time before and the time before....in each boom we are told "it's different this time" then it busts,,,,,lesson booms are followed by a bust

Are you trying to flog a property, or some debt related to it perchance

"We're a small island with limited space " like Japan look at what happened there

prices are dropping in the US, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, throughout Eastern Europe, all because of debt, and speculation

darren, maidenhead, berks

In a market driven by growth expectations, prices do not stagnate.

From a personal point of view as a potential FTB, new builds are the most overpriced of the lot - prices would need a 50% haircut before i even enquire about one... and i don't mean all this easy-buy deferred mortgage, free carpets, fees paid nonsense - i mean an actual price cut.

Still, they'll probably have to learn the hard way.

Albert Hall, Blackburn, Lancashire, UK

The BofE has squadered the opportunity to head off a looming recession over the past 2 months. Our economy is more similar to the US than any other so we should have already had a 1% cut by now but the BofE is always behind the curve. Rip off Britain, higher borrowing costs and charges from Banks and Building Societies yet the headline rate hasn't gone up? Xmas sales will be woeful and by the end of January the UK will be in recession
and the BofE (in the pockets of the High St Banks) is just waiting for the accident to happen before acting.

Jerry, London, UK

The greatest problem with the housing market is too many people buying property not as a home to live in but as an investment for future profit. The obivious outcome of this is dearer housing, as everyone expects to make a profit leading to overvaluation. This attitude fuelled by greedy estate agents and tv programmes highlighting how to go about this and make it sound like a virtue, has led to a shortage of affordable housing for the lower paid. None of this is helped by the Thatcherite policy of 'right to buy' in which the best council house properties enetered into the property market never to return to the purpose for which they were intended. Those who wanted to and could afford their own homes should have gone and bought one privately and left the council houses to the low paid workers they were intended for.

Dave Jones, Skelmersdale, UK

Prices are unlikely to fall sharply, but can and will stagnate.

All this just as the government wants to build 3 miilion more houses in the most blatant piece of socialist central planning ever seen in this country.

To anybody who still thinks Mr Brown has any belief in the market; there's the proof - he doesn't.

A wilful inability to see the evidence of his own incompetence characterised that other great 20th century democrat, Mr Joseph Stalin.

cuffleyburgers, Lucca,

House building should never be treated as a target figure especially when the market in building them is privately owned and in receipt of a stock quotation. The whole business of building, buying and selling houses has got totally out of hand. Under Government supervision houses have become wealth builders in a trading game that is no better than a cartel. It is not society that shortened the supply of dwellings, it is the private enterprise that holds properties back, buys-up affordable properties; it is the huge block of people who are virtually always occupying properties that they want to sell on , their eyes constantly averted to profit. There is a Soham element in all of this. The shifting population, forced into rented accommodation by the manipulated shortage, are in danger of becoming permanently unknowable, aliases and false identity, detached from local issues, stealthy. This is part and parcel of the dash for cash Government and its impenetrable social policies.

Malcolm Turner, Alsager, England

The government wants to build 3 million plus new houses at 250 thousand per year. Last year they missed the target by 82 thousand. If prices fall Builders will slacken off even further. In the meantime the target will have to increase above 3m as uncontrolled immigration continues. Sounds like Wembley Stadium over again.

Ron, Bedford, U.K.

As one of five brothers I was brought up in a council house in Scotland. No problem with that although a bit cramped with 3 bedrooms. Then, almost 50 years ago, we considered people that owned their houses to be very rich, or posh. It would appear to be no different now. The sad thing is there are no longer sufficient council houses to cater for those who are neither rich, nor posh. If the government, through councils, were to build what they now term social housing to cater for the demand of rented housing I would expect the builders wouldn't have to worry about the housing market.

By the way I am still not posh, but considerably richer than 50 years ago.

Jim Davidson, Norwich,

Aren't all 3 bed sem's in Bedford worth £79,000 even now?.
Oliver forgets that before the war Bedford was just open fields.
Stewart Barget. Mill Hill, London

Stewart Barget, London, London

There is a huge structural problem that Bob the Builder can't fix - the loss of productive economic capacity that could sustain our demand for housing. The foundations of our economy are built on sand and any builder knows that there is no easy method to underpin it. Pumping in further liquidity will only be a temporary stop gap. We now need concrete foundations that encourage investment into productive capacity rather than an over reliance on a flaky service sector.

Steve Marchant, Torquay, England

£79,000 is roughly what a three bedroom semi would cost if we had house prices at a sensible level of affordability, like we did before the war. The idea that there is anything good about the current prices is lunacy. They are socially corrosive in umpteen ways. Let them come down, and then increase supply so they will stay down.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

This doesn't make any sense. How can buyers be "waiting to see if prices come down"? We're a small island with limited space and a growing population. A moment's thought about basic supply and demand tells us that prices are set to rocket.

And a good thing too. After all, a house price crash is the last thing any of us want to see!

FTB's, what does it matter if you're paying 3x what the house cost in 1993? Stop your dangerous waiting game and BUY BUY BUY before prices shoot up even further!!

David, Manchester,

Developers are already offering part exchange, stamp duty paid, etc. The real problem is that new builds sales have been propped up by buy to let investors just like the rest of the residential market.

A generation (or two) of people have decided and grudgingly accepted they will never own a home. They aren't sitting on their hands and waiting at all, as suggested in this article.
They are simply renting their home and living their lives with no interest in buying property.

A few percentage points drop in house prices won't change that belief. it would take much, much more than that to rekindle these people's motivation to own property.

Perhaps we have a dead goose on our hands?

A Patrick, Bath,

Land banks will not be so valuable when house prices are in free fall. Or is there a 'new' theory of land economics at play.

Why are the US & UK markets so different?

Liberal lending practices, long term low interest rates.... just two of the bubble maker ingredients currently under threat...

ginge, Stockport, UK