From: "allan tracy" 
Newsgroups: uk.politics.misc alt.politics.british uk.finance
Subject: Re: King sounds warning over economy. House prices overvalued and bankrupcies risk becoming large social problem.
Date: 10 May 2006 12:01:07 -0700
   posting-account=-L2MrAwAAABNICCeKmXIJxMSZGhpOY1W

>
> Only until and unless the population drops dramatically (?bird flu), and the
> supply/demand ratio changes.

Wouldn't need anything too dramatic to occur just pen, paper and a
rewrite of the planning laws to free up the countryside for
development, basically what the Government is proposing.

It's not the price of houses that's the issue it's the price of land
and to have such high land prices in the 49th least crowded country in
the World is just plain dumb. Especially, when so much agricultural
land just sits there eating up subsidy.

It also goes to show just how fragile the house price boom could really
be when a simple change in regulation could bring the whole lot
tumbling down.

All inflation is bad for an economy and house price inflation is no
different. House prices, truely left to the market place, should go
down in real terms due to improvements in technology and building
methods. This will never happen whilst the housing market remains so
regulated but, with increasing inward migration required to keep the
economy growing, the square now needs to be circled and whoever is in
power expect that to happen very soon.

Our attitude to buying a house should be no different to that when
buying a car or white goods. It's not an investment decision but a
consumer decision.