| "We expect just 5.5% of private housing to change hands next year, which means that the average household is moving just once every 18 years. The problem is that low levels of liquidity in what is an already illiquid market are likely to increase the short term volatility in house prices. This is likely to impact on asking prices more than underlying values." | |
| Richard Donnell, Hometrack | December 2006 |
| "As we have seen, raising interest rates can be used to influence the direction of house prices in the short term, but it does very little to address the underlying cause of house price inflation. Crucially, it cannot address the increasing demand for housing driven by the needs of a growing population." | |
| Miles Shipside, Rightmove | March 2007 |
| "The current level of prices has been underpinned by the desire of other people simply to make money out of housing. There is good chance they will be disappointed in how much money they do make and then when they sell there will be bigger supply of housing for everybody else." | |
| Evan Davis | March 2007 |
| "My extreme care to avoid saying the words “I suspect house prices will probably fall”, should not be interpreted as meaning they will go up. No-one should buy on the expectation they can make continued exceptional returns. And they should probably be prepared to make some exceptional losses." | |
| Evan Davis | March 2007 |
| "We’re not quite calling the top of the market, but we want to point out that there are signs the market is out of balance and will be vulnerable to significant short-term losses when there are problems for employers in the global economy." | |
| Tim Craine, London Development Research | April 2007 |
| "Buy-to-let landlords from all over the UK were desperately trying to get through to their trade body [last week], worried about how to handle new Government legislation regarding tenant deposits. But for the 750,000 or so Britons who have transformed themselves into property tycoons in recent years, this may turn out to be the least of their worries." | |
| Iain Dey, The Telegraph | April 2007 |
| "Demand at the bottom end of the market is definitely calming, and there are signs that the rest of the market is following." | |
| Nicholas Leeming, Propertyfinder.com | April 2007 |
| "Affordability is the major issue in the mortgage market as recent reports of a drop in the number of first-time buyers demonstrates. The fact that around 77,000 mortgage applications are being rejected a month means it is likely that it is not only first-timers who are being hit." | |
| Sean Gardner, chief executive of MoneyExpert.com | April 2007 |
| "When the rich start to complain, one may be sure that the poor are already suffering. The rich, particularly in London, are starting to complain about their children.... It is a mistake to be young in new Labour Britain; it has become much more difficult to get started in life, to find the first professional job or the first house." | |
| William Rees-Mogg, The Times | April 2007 |
| "In 1951 the Conservatives promised to build 300,000 houses a year — nearly twice the present level. That promise swept the country and brought the Conservatives back to power for 13 years. It was the young who voted them in. That could happen again." | |
| William Rees-Mogg, The Times | April 2007 |
External Sites