Rising house prices produce a ‘feel good factor’. Homeowners feel financially stronger, and spend more on the things that fill their homes, giving a boost to the economy. Falling prices can trap those that most recently purchased a home in negative equity. They undermine consumer confidence, leading to recession. So as well as disrupting the housing market, these wild fluctuations impact on the wider economy. Rising house prices should be seen as a failure of policy. Instead they have been encouraged by governments of every hue as an easy way to lift the economy out of the doldrums. The resulting burden on future generations is every bit as serious as raising public debt.

It puts UK housing policy into perspective, showing where it differs from elsewhere, and how that has shaped our rental and home-ownership markets. The mechanisms by which social housing has been delivered are shaped by local cultural and political forces in each country, making simple comparisons. rather meaningless. Social housing can fill gaps where the market fails to meet housing need at a price households can afford. So the role of social housing in each country has to be understood in relation to the total housing market, including the private rented sector and home-ownership. In the fifties and sixties house prices in the UK were relatively stable. Most households rented. As mortgages became widely available the first of a series of housing booms occurred in the early seventies, starting a cycle that has followed a similar pattern ever since. The longer the period of sustained growth the deeper the fall when the bubble bursts, as it did most dramatically in the late eighties and again in 2008.