Negative equity is only a problem if you need to move. Few people really have to move, though there will be some. The rest just need to sit tight, keep paying the mortgage and wait for inflation to bring them back into positive equity. The way things are going on true inflation (despite our deceitful government's self-serving stats) it won't take long.

Colin, shrewsbury,

The Morgan Stanley analysis is hypothetical and will fall apart if the Treasury steps in to act as some form of guarantor for mortgages. Worst of all, their analysis confuses the mortgage market with the property market. One is about demand for and supply of property, the other demand for and supply of mortgages. They are connected but not linked to the extent that this research suggests.

Demand for property is driven by factors such as population levels, demographics, family structure/composition, unemployment levels, and income levels. It can be constrained by factors such as mortgage supply and property numbers.

Suggesting that the property market is so tightly driven by mortgage supply is an error.

Michael, London, UK

I fail to understand why some folk are so agitated at the prospect of a grossly inflated housing/asset bubble deflating.
Perhaps these angst ridden people are either terrified BTLers or idle Estate Agents!

Tom, Axminster, Devon

Natalie, Kettering. Are you missing a decimal point? 16% per annum over 15 years would increase the value of a £100,000 house to over £1 million. This seems pretty dramatic to me.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

Don't trust these prophets of doom!

Mr Brown has told us not to worry because our economy, under his stewardship, is so strong that we British can ride out the credit crunch, unscathed.

Please don't say that you don't believe him!

jinette bond, morecambe, england

Here in the East Midlands our Georgian house has gone up in value by 16% p.a.on average in the last 15 years, although we are under 60 mins by train from London St Pancras International. Not all the areas of the country have seen the same dramatic price increases reported in the media. I presume therefore that our houses here have always been better value and our area of the country will not see the same drop in value that you predict?

Natalie, Kettering, UK

It is a correction that we all expected some years earlier. Didn't we?

Peter Vernunft, Berlin, Germany

"...Whilst most of us are going to lose a few hundred thousand pounds or so..." But only on paper. If you don't have to sell or re-finance it has no effect whatsoever. Just sit tight, keep on paying the mortgage, and wait for the inevitable swing to restore values. Meanwhile stop worrying over it!

S. Barraclough, Huddersfield, W. Yorkshire

The moral of the story is don't withdraw equity from the current inflated 'value' of the property you have taken a loan on in order to finance other spending. If you have done so already, you have no genuine cause for complaint should the equity in that property be less than the money you owe on it.

Paul, Coventry,

I think it is important to put the current house price predictions in to context.

Whilst most of us are going to lose a few hundred thousand pounds or so, spare a thought for the less fortunate among us, a 15% down turn in prices could really hit the Duke of Westminster; perhaps Gordon should put a rescue package together!

I think we should all consider ourselves very lucky. Those poor landowners are being dealt a double-whammy, with current fuel prices spiralling out of control it must be make driving the perimeter of one's estate a jolly expensive affair!

David, Warks,