Vanessa Warwick, GUILDFORD. Prices of assets also rise well beyond any fundamentals based upon supply and demand simply because people believe that they will continue to rise ever higher. This is the the reason behind the current property bubble. NO asset bubble in the recorded history of economics has ever survived indefinitely - they ALWAYS burst. Your other arguments may stand up if your property business is aimed at making profit from rent, rather than from asset value. However, if this is the case, in my experience you are amongst a very small minority of property investors who are in this position. All the ones I know are currently making a loss on rental income and are solely dependent upon the value of their properties rising. They will be disappointed in the near future. As for the longer term, the chances of any of them hanging onto their properties for the next 20 years or so (given that the average interest rate over the last few decades is around 8%) is virtually zero.

Graham, Oxford, UK

As a full time property investor, I believe that our market is based on one simple factor - supply and demand. We live on an island - no one is making more land. FACT. Therefore, wherever there is too much demand and not enough supply, prices go up. We have 400,000 people coming to this country through immigration each year, yet we are only building about 170,000 houses per year. Plus we are running out of land to build on. Do the maths. Properties are not over-valued by 30 - 40%. They are valued at what the market supports. The fact that sub-prime people are finding it harder to get a mortgage can only be a positive thing as far as I am concerned. When people cannot get a mortgage, where are they going to live? In rented accommodation! Therefore rents go up. If you own property, you are a winner either way. We have over 60 years of historical precedence to prove that property is a fantastic investment, as long as you take a mid to long term view.

Vanessa Warwick, GUILDFORD, Surrey

Cheap money has chased up the value of all asset classes including residential property to such an extent that propery is overpriced by some 30 -40%. With loans now hard to come by there is only one way for property prices to go and that is down! The economy needs property prices to reduce substantialy in order for the economy to go forward. However, I believe that this cycle will take perhaps fifteen years to work though for prices to fall and to regain the present prices. This is the workings of the market and the capatalist economy. Greed has to be eliminated before making progress.

Robert S Wheal, Chichester, West Sussex