I don't think Gordon's new towns will do much to help in large city areas and it won't help families are getting squeezed out of these places. It's so hard for people to trade up to somewhere bigger when the differentials are so large. If the difference between 1 bed and 2 beds was £50K three years ago, it is likely to be £80K now, and that means another £30K for someone to find before they are where they were 3 years ago. It's almost impossible if you are not on a high income. I wish some help was given to these people whose families are growing, and have nowhere to turn. They must be forming a huge log jam in the system.

Jenny, london,

Someone referred here to the dot.com bubble. As with all bubbles, "dumb money" follows the "smart money" but is invested too late when the opportunity is way past it's best.

With buy to let, we may have been in the "dumb money" phase for about 2 years now. So many late entrants took equity from their own homes, borrowed working on a model based on rental income covering only the interest on the assumption that double digit capital growth was available and sustainable long term. If buy to let investors merely stop buying, then the demand side would weaken significantly. Indications are there that they may be starting to sell, particularly flats and smaller houses where the yields are lowest.

This may bring about a sharp dip in prices this autumn. The end of the Universirty year this summer will also be a test of buy to let landlords resolve in my opinion.

A Patrick, Bath,

Someone referred here to the dot.com bubble. As with all bubbles, "dumb money" follows the "smart money" but is invested too late when the opportunity is way past it's best.

With buy to let, we may have been in the "dumb money" phase for about 2 years now. So many late entrants took equity from their own homes, borrowed working on a model based on rental income covering only the interest on the assumption that double digit capital growth was available and sustainable long term. If buy to let investors merely stop buying, then the demand side would weaken significantly. Indications are there that they may be starting to sell, particularly flats and smaller houses where the yields are lowest.

This may bring about a sharp dip in prices this autumn. The end of the Universirty year in August will also be a test of buy to let landlords resolve in my opinion.

A Patrick, Bath,

Unfortunately as more and more people arrive, and less and less houses are built, the remaining houses have to go up in price.

Also, people think that HIPS will lower house prices. More likely the opposite, there will be less people selling, so lower supply, thus higher house prices.

Nathan, Watford, UK

When the dot.com boom got to the stage that it was becoming very hard to believe that anything can keep going up forever, all the analyst and statistics pointed out to why this was a geniune growht. We see it here again, but this time with housing, nothing can go up so fast and stay there.

Karim, Manama, Bahrain

The formula is simple - as long as the government thinks that the majority of the electorate gets net benefit from rising house prices there will not be a serious effort to change the current trend. So many people have such a high proportion of their wealth tied up in residential property that any downturn would be a major vote loser.

Rest assured that if there were sufficient votes involved we would see whole cities being constructed, as in the interwar years and later with Milton Keynes. New(ly middle class) Labour understood this, and although it spun the spin on affordable homes for state employees this was never serious.

If "Gordon" is genuinely left wing he will use the green fashion to authorise building vast numbers of affordable homes and the infrastructure to service them, bluffing the unfortunate middles classes that this is an envirnoment-friendly move that will let them keep their agas, volvoes, horseboxes etc on the road.

alan, london,

Why is another rise surprising? It is the kind of thing that happens just before the bubble bursts. The only thing that I find surprising is that you describe it as strong, worrying would be more appropriate.

Gordon Callan, Shanghai, China

There is a UK wide housing shortage. Enough said!

robd, Reading, UK

you may not believe this but the house market in the UK
buying and letting is now the 2nd largest industry in the UK.
so AGENTS AND INVESTORS are driving the prices up
for profit ,HOUSES ARE NO LONGER A HOME they are a
commodity to be traded in an open market and its only
going to get worse due to migrants coming from the eastern
block.

george william taylor, hull, uk