Too much hinges on house prices: but Britain may yet avoid a crash
by Larry Elliott from on (#2Z3AG)
The whole economy moves when the property market moves. This is hardly a desirable state of affairs, but we are not in for a re-run of the 1990s slump
House price crashes are rare in Britain and it's not hard to see why. This is a small country with tough planning laws and a tax system that creates incentives for people to invest in bricks and mortar. Mostly, limits on supply plus strong demand equals rising prices.
There is little to suggest that the property market is about to go though the agonies of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when prices fell in real terms for more than half a decade and record numbers of homes were repossessed.
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