TOP of the wishlist of every would-be homebuyer are two things: more affordable housing and mortgages that do not spring nasty surprises. Gordon Brown extended the promise of both this week, in an announcement that coincided with figures showing first-time buyers are taking on record levels of debt.

More lower-priced homes are to be built; meanwhile easy-to-understand, long-term fixed-rate loan deals will be the cure for the repayment shock blues, the malaise of the summer of 2007. About 750,000 people are now contemplating an increase of roughly a third in their mortage repayments, as the discounted fixed-rate offers that they took out two years ago expire. It is as if their lender had suddenly turned from Primark into Harrods.

The response to Mr Brown’s plans was mostly cynical, and not only because the proposals had a familar sound. For example, previous projects to deliver more dwellings, such as the Millennium Communities Programme, have not reached their targets, mostly because of planning delays. Mr Brown may wish to liberalise the planning regime. But opposition is already mustering on websites such as planningdisaster.co.uk, where the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the National Trust and others are mustering public support.

A great number of parents are now voicing their concerns over their children’s much reduced chance of ever buying a home while prices remain steep. But will these same mothers and fathers happily contemplate the construction of more new homes in their neighbourhoods if this extra supply dents property values and spoils the view?

BACKGROUND

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• Opening bids - a year in property

BACKGROUND

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• Will there be a rate cut before Christmas? Kate Barker knows - but she’s not telling

• Downturn and downtown in 2008: how investors in UK city-centre flats may feel the chill first

• Opening bids

Sub-prime slime is oozing out everywhere from the US -where will it spread next?

BACKGROUND

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• Ripple effect from Belgravia to the suburbs

• Comment: the property market slowdown

• Tax perks for a few are adding to the property have-nots’ sense of injustice, but don’t expect reform any time soon

• This was not a timely retreat. What does the government now mean to do to save the planet?

The silencing of our Mr Spocks

Our public administration has specialised in low-level, chronic inefficiency with a counterpoint of big talk

BACKGROUND

• Average prices in the South are 1.59 times higher than the North

• The City’s ardour for status homes remains unabated

• The dawn of a more eco-conscious Britain may be delayed

• It's bonus time, let the stampede begin

• Prices and politics either side of the border

Hips will make us greener, or so the Government says

• Hips have already won hearts and minds and will make us all greener, or so the Government says

BACKGROUND

• Mortgage competition makes millions immune to base-rate moves

• Hidden costs of a place in the sun

• Primark Principle revises gloomy views

• Going green is not cheap

For Mr Brown long-term fixed-rate loans lend stability to the housing market, a view with some validity. Americans used to prefer this type of borrowing. Their recent enthusiasm for loans with “teaser rates” – which reverted to exhorbitant standard rates – has been a key contributory factor in the US housing market slump.

However, the short-term discounted fixed-rate loan offers available in the UK bear no comparison with such offers. Moreover, lower initial repayments must always be more attractive to anyone embarking on a house purchase than the guarantee that their monthly bill will remain at the same level for the next 25 years.

Despite their dislike of repayment shocks, most first-time buyers would probably still rather take a bet that their income will be higher when their two-year fix comes to an end and larger repayments loom than take a 25-year gamble on the direction of interest rates.

First-time buyers do need Mr Brown’s help, however. And there is a far easier way that he could be of assistance. According to the Property finder website, some 420,000 homes stand empty in a state of disrepair. Surely these should be part of the solution to our housing crisis?

MIND THE GAP

Three words summarise the current state of the housing market: “stark regional differences”. There is no option but to mind the gap as both Nationwide and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) provide evidence that conditions are anything but uniform. Some areas, such as Northern Ireland – up 54 per cent since June 2006 and 7.8 per cent over the last quarter – have, to date, seemed immune to the more expensive cost of borrowing, while others were close to submission, even before the blow of last week’s fifth successive rate increase.

But although there is mounting evidence of a widening in the North-South divide, this is not the whole story. Sometimes the statistics are awkward and will not submit themselves to simplification, as the Nationwide highlights.

In England, the annual pace of growth in the South (11.7 per cent) has been almost twice that in the North, where, in places such as Liverpool, prices have remained unchanged since June 2006 – a state of affairs that is not stopping projects such as the planned construction of a 54-storey apartment block. This will be the highest living space in the UK, in a city already controversially oversupplied with flats. In Sheffield and Sunderland, however, prices are 20 per cent higher than a year ago. London (up 15.7 per cent over a year) looks a laggard by contrast.

But what lies in store for all these areas? Here two words will suffice: more cooling, even in still-booming locations. Most RICS members report greater caution among buyers. This Greek chorus on housing market events also notes that foul weather has dampened spirits, but perhaps not as much as the prospect of another upward move in interest rates.

YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS

The recent undersupply in this column of “egregiously, outrageously, overpriced” American homes (the words of a US property market commentator) has upset some readers. But this week we can bring you a Beverly Hills mansion complex on the market for $165 million. For this price you could have a house in Holland Park and another in Belgravia. anne.ashworth@thetimes.co.uk

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