The banner headline in today’s Daily Express seemingly rejoices in this piece of “good news”. The article continues “The housing market has defied gloomy ­predictions to end the year with prices up by nearly six per cent. And in a clear sign that bricks and mortar remain a sound investment, the price of the average home has more than doubled over the past decade, it was revealed...

The Communities and Local Government’s website has this piece of news on changes to the planning system. “Developers will be given more time to start building and further flexibility to adapt plans, under a package of new measures announced by Housing Minister John Healey yesterday to support the industry during these tough economic times. Mr Healey also announced changes for developers...

So runs the front page headline in today’s Daily Express, which announces that house prices increased by more than £3,000 last month – their biggest rise for two years. “The surprise leap of 1.9 per cent”, it says, “follows 10 consecutive monthly falls which have wiped around £33,000 off the value of the average three-bedroom semi, according to Britain’s biggest...

The British Property Federation believes a professionalised, branded rental sector, where big firms provide long term homes to rent, could be the answer to Britain’s woes.

HOUSING — THE PERSISTENT PROBLEM A DISCUSSION PAPERThis paper, which was originally written in March 2000, has been revised in the light of subsequent events. It describes how land value taxation would affect and ameliorate some aspects of the housing market and the problems associated with its present mode of operation and is here reissued because the essential issues remain unchanged; indeed,...

The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors says “Dealing with the current housing market downturn requires significant and decisive action from the Government whose attempts to address the problems facing the market up to now have been limited and have had little real impact. “To encourage the Government to take action, RICS has put together a package of measures that will help address...

The news is still of falling house prices and expectations of more to come. Nationwide report a drop for every month of the last nine. An estimated 145,000 mortgage holders already owe more in mortgage payments than their houses are worth, according to research undertaken for the Daily Telegraph. Since the peak in October last year, the average house price has fallen from £186,044 to £172,415, with...

The housing market will not boom again until 2015, according to Professor Stephen Nickell, Warden of Nuffield College, Oxford, in an article in the Daily Telegraph here One might ask why it is desirable that the housing market should boom at all. After all, only the oil producers are happy when the oil price booms, and when food prices boom, people may even get together and have riots. So what is...