KingCash

I'm English and I am in favour of independance for Scotland. It would be good if England was no longer on the UN Security council and decided to scrap nuclear weapons at the same time. It would also be good to stop subsidising Scottish pensioners and students. Indepenance for Wales and Northern Ireland would help save money for the English too. It might also mean less Scottish domination in English politics.

On the one hand there are more single person households, and on the other we are told that couples are buying together to raise more money. Maybe, just maybe, the 'experts' are making it up as they go along.

A 2.2% fall with low unemployment, low interest rates and a shortage of property (etc etc) constitutes a serious shift. Let's just hope it continues.

I agree - plenty of traditional houses as well. Rental prices in Sheffield haven't gone up in 18 months.

At what point did the public finally recognise the "slide" of the early 90s? I bet it wasn't after six months.

Yeah well, share prices always follow firm fundamentals and are not at all driven by herd behaviour.

Well I remain to be convinced. All this talk of the money supply being so vast that houses can keep going in double digit growth forever forgets the fact that the population is getting further and further into debt. How can it continue?

In early 2005 when everyone thought a HPC was on the cards Gordon boldly said "there will be no house price crash". I thought at the time, does he know something everyone else does not? Now it becomes clear - he gave instructions to the BoE to secretly include house prices in their remit.

This is obsession with "growth" is getting a bit pointless. Higher economic growth in an ever increasing population does not mean everyone is getting richer, it means everyone is staying the same.

Given the current buzz and hype about property now I think the downturn is going to see property becoming a swear word for over a decade, so yes. They'll be all the usual talk of "it always goes up over the long-term" but the long term will become the very long term.

Yeah right. I've seen some places with to-let signs for ages. It's seems that zillionaire's mansions are included in house price surveys, but any negative news off the scale is ignored.

I remember when concorde was decommissioned a few years ago that some reporter was asked what legacy it has left for Britian. The answer was, "er, not much, really". What legacy did it leave for France? Only Airbus, the second biggest (occassionally biggest) aircraft manufacturer in the world. Somehow we just can't get manfacturing right in this country. Those that are doing well here are usually foreign owned and run. We need to stop treating Germany, Japan and France as economic failures that need to emulate us. We should be copying them.

Does student accommodation count in the "number of dwellings" stats? Here in Sheffield there are several new large student blocks nearing completion which will add another couple of thousand flats to the mix. It will, in turn, mean many privately owned houses bought for students to share will remain empty.

I'd say there was probably more of a shortage in Japan and Hong Kong....... 'nuff said.