Gutted about not being on the latdder aren't you? Interest rates were at 14% when the market collapsed. They're at 5.5% and heading south. Try and get an appointment with an estate agent in London on a Saturday, then you can see how active the market is.

Finn , London, UK

Surely one of the problems has been aggressive/unethical lending. The lenders are relying more on brokers who are incentivised for introducing borrowers. The brokers "suggest" to the borrower that they can only afford to buy by borrowing an increased multiple of their salary or by lying about the amount they earn.
Many of the brokers are located in estate agents' offices and they will benefit by inflating property prices. All lenders should, by law, have to contact the employer and be limited to lending no more than four times income. The market would then stabilise, after a fall.

Peter , Leatherhead,

As property is 65% overvalued, then a crashis an almost done thing.... Even New Liebour's Darling has now consigned himself.

The only problem is it will take perhaps another Tory government and 20 years to sort the problem out.

Pete Balchin, Solicitor , Bristol, UK

The housing market has nothing to do with this fundamental, that ratio to earnings or even supply and demand; it is all about confidence and human nature. When will commentators and so called experts learn that the scare stories and negative reports become self fulfilling prophecies?The BTL market is all about financially secure people with 'spare' capacity and has nothing to do with the millions of people out there struggling to make ends meet with increased mortgage commitments, huge tax demands on their gross and net incomes and rising prices. After the Northern Rock fiasco, rising interest rates, subprime ripples across the pond and Brown's government callously ripping off everyone left, right and centre, confidence has evaporated almost 'overnight' and now the herd mentality will kick in, starting the blind charge towards the cliff.

S. MAYES, Bahrain

Steve Mayes, Manama, Bahrain

Simon, Leatherhead.
Unfortunately you couldn't be more wrong. There are plenty of properties. When your average wage earner cannot afford the average house there is something fundamentally wrong. The problem lies with the lenders over lending and borrowers over extending. Add to that the huge amount of mortgage fraud which has been going on and there is the recipe for trouble. Kate Barker stating that the credit crunch will have no effect on housing is laughable. As the governments adviser on property it is hardly surprising though. When banks tighten their lending criteria, as they are doing, the debt gorged UK population will not be able to borrow to fund their consumption and thus discretionary spending will slow. This will hit the high streets and with no manufacturing base to fall back on the UK services driven economic "miracle" will be brutally exposed. The UK economy is built on house price inflation and then mortgage equity withdrawal debt driven consumption.

Ed, London,

Charlie, your memory serves you ill. The US experienced 17 consecutive base rate rises. This left people coming off 1% deals faced with revised rates of 5.25%.

The UK market can continue to take comfort from the basest of all economic theory - supply and demand. There is currently not enough property to go around. The UK population is forecasted to grow by 15%. Sure, low wage inflation and the resultant affordability constraints will kick in some form of check to house price inflation. However, a price collapse would seem to defy simple logic.

Simon, Leatherhead,

Why do people go on about supply and demand. Has supply really changed that much over the last 5 years to warrant such drastic price increases? Demand has certainly increased (until now) but if confidence goes (which I believe is the main factor in this current market) then demand will collapse.

I live in Belfast and 8 months ago houses were selling in weeks. Now, there are houses that have been sitting unsold for over 4 months and I recently heard of someone dropping their asking price by £25,000 just to make a sale! And believe me, there is suddenly no shortage of supply.

Gerard Garland, Belfast, Ireland

In my personal opion certainly that prices will shrink a little in the areas that are not commutable to London ,However I cannot see prices retreating too much in the south east as the fundementals remain sound. In the most part financial companys are no where near as exposed as people think most BTL still require 16 per cent deposit and 130 per cent rent to valuation ratio.
There will all ways be an up and down side debate about property in this country that will never change sadly some people will be misinformed .

J REGAN, London, UK

I find Ms Kate Barkers opinion a tad optimistic, no doubt exploiting her exalted position to pacify a worried property market. In the West Midlands new houses are not selling and I can’t remember seeing so many "for sale" signs.

Notwithstanding, if memory serves, all it took in the US was half a dozen interest rate hikes and then a fall in confidence in US property values to obtain a 30% drop...and still falling. The US economic slowdown is only just starting to show.

First a property crash, then economic turmoil, then economic slowdown - not difficult to remember is it?

charlie, Birmingham, UK

This...that........and......tother
The dynamics of supply and demand will prevail.
Swifters.

Ian Swift, NEWPORT, Monmouthshire

I suspect theres less of an issue with the markets currently as for the last 10 years or so people have been investing in property as this has given lower risk higher returns. This is changing.
If people have lost the belief in pensions and have shuffled money into property and they suspect that the property could go the same way as pensions did as well as there being more risk tied to lower increases (which is obvious currently), I guess there will be interesting results as everyone one clambers to try and keep the profits they have made on the back of the CGT changes..

Robert Hexter, ex Notts UK, Vancouver BC

I thought that the ridiculous house price inflation we have seen in the UK was solely due to supply constraints caused by selfish Tory Local Authorities not granting planning consent for new housing. No?

Looks like the government and the BOE can no longer preach this fallacy. It is obvious, even to my dog, that BTL is having a huge impact on the housing market. 12% is a significant slice of the market and only represents ‘official’ BTL lending. It does not include cash buyers and unscrupulous individuals who fund the purchase of rental properties with products aimed at owner occupiers and FTBs.

The government has always been eager to play down the BTL influence because to suggest that speculation was the reason for our housing crisis would have warranted legislation to deter such activity. This would have resulted in a perceived policy driven house market sump. A slump is the governments WORST nightmare as it almost guarantees recession and election defeat.

K Jirackova, Newcastle,

By God, the UK needs a good recession to get rid of one of the pull factors encouraging excessive and unsustainable levels of immigration to this country. We are congested, over crowded and losing our identity. Bring on a solid recession - how about jacking interest rates up by 5% for a start!

Richard, Kidderminster, England

BLT is at present a prescription for financial suicide unless you can afford to buy in Mayfair, Chelsea etc. The government should know this but will disguise the facts in gobbledy gook press releases.

Frederick, London , UK

Ha Ha Ha. Well I for one am hoping that houses prices crash through the floor as soon as possible so this is all good news to me. Maybe they will then have bus tours to buy repossessed property as they do now in the USA.

Simon, London, UK

Yes, but possibly not for the reasons stated... what happens if people with significant BTL investment decide that there will not be significant appreciation of house prices and freed from the handcuffs of taper-relief decided to cash in on the changes to CGT?

Michael, London,