If I didn't know that this was a UK site, I would have sworn you were talking about Australia. Exactly the same problem here! Only we are a little behind you - our prices are still soaring. First home buyers have all but given up. Loans being taken up to buy are quuite ridiculous. Seems to be a world wide problem. Watch the USA. Looks like it is going pear shaped.

Victoria Mack, Melbourne, Australia

Don't worry the people that created this boom will bring it back down to earth sooner than many think.....look out below and across the pond. Remember we live in rip off Britian. nothings changed,

David , Coventry,

Mick, I suggest that instead of a 'chronic housing shortage that fuelled the boom in paper prices' there has been a boom in money loaned by banks that created an asset bubble. Remember when banks would only lend 3.5x income? We have turned ourselves into a nation of debt serfs and invested our future earnings in non-productive assets.

Wise Fool, Hampshire,

Bring on another 8milllion immigrats I say. I will keep inflation under control and property prices high...

Austin Tassletine, Bristol, UK

The stupidity of the UK property market knows no bounds; houses are over-priced by what - 50%, 100%? A national obsession fuelled by the never ending parade of those wretched property-ramping programmes hosted by overweight women.

There is no shortage of property in the UK, just a shortage of affordable housing (and common sense). Cheap money and criminally reckless lending has created this massive bubble and it will all end in tears - just like the last time.

peter kiddle, st neots, cambs

Yet more misinformation. If there's such a housing shortage why aren't the streets full of the homeless? The obsession with property prices is very boring, but is generated mainly by those who can't afford to buy and those who are hoarding stock as 'investments', thus preventing others from buying at a sensible price. Any prospective UK government which has a a policy priority bringing prices down to affordable levels and keeping them there will get my vote. Failing that, I'll just have to hope that the forthcoming crash is both deep and long lasting.

Graham, Oxford, UK

With adult children living at home - and neither of them having a snowball's chance of getting on the property ladder - I'm heartily glad I don't have any stairs in my almost-paid-off house that I might unexpectedly "fall" down!

Rachel, Edinburgh,

Or we could do what really needs doing and reduce the population of the UK so that there isn't the constant pressure to build more and more houses on our ever more over-crowded land.

Id, Thankfully, Overseas

When my father died in 1997, I decided that I didn't want to be sucked into this obsessive cycle of property pornography, so I flogged off our old, large, decaying house for 320 grand and bought an old boat to live on, which I enjoy. Now, ten years later, that house is worth about 1.5 million, and I have not thought about property prices for the last ten years. I have never regretted my decision!

Thomas Goodey, Cuxton-upon-Medway, UK

If only people would realise that their home is worth nothing to them. If I sold my house for the £400,000+ that I am told it is worth I would have to spend it all to buy another - or use the cash to pay rent. Once people understand that any monetary value of their home is nly of benefit to their heirs we may seem some semblance of sense in teh housing market.

Barry Mellish, Bromley, UK