Property cloud has a silver lining for starters

Apr 17 2008 By The Stirrer

THERE'S going to be a house price crash. Get over it.

Now we're into a cycle of decline, it seems nothing can stop the cost of property plummeting. The only question is how low will it go?

The West Midlands is already feeling the pinch more than most.

According to the Halifax, values in this region have slipped five per cent in the last three months alone - twice the national average.

Some people will come a cropper, of course - mostly those who've re-mortgaged their assets and squandered the proceeds on foreign holidays and flash cars.

There'll be a few greedy speculators wailing and gnashing their teeth as well as they see their dreams of becoming millionaire landlords turn to dust.

The rest of us will just take it on the chin and reflect on the fact that a house should be a home - not a goldmine.

It's the losers who'll make all the headlines, of course. The reckless and the feckless who over-stretched their credit lines in the belief that the good times would last forever.

When you see these stories, remember that there are winners too.

As the credit crunch bites, investors who bought city centre flats to stand empty while their value rocketed will now have to sell up.

Fine. Couples who previously couldn't afford a place of their own can take advantage of the dip and finally home-owners.

Developers struggling to shift detached, five bedroom villas on executive estates might realise that ordinary working families need somewhere to live too.

Figures released today by the charity Shelter show that over the last decade, the price of property for first time buyers has risen an astonishing 180 per cent -three times faster than the average household income.

Can we really talk about a "crisis" if it means that gap is narrowed, giving hardworking truckers, nurses and office workers the chance to enter the housing market?

Maybe the government will even have the courage to start building council houses again and reverse the trend of the Thatcherite "right to buy" policy of the 1980s. That was really about the right to say: "I'm alright Jack, pull up the (property) ladder."

Millions of people aren't looking for a pension plan in bricks and mortar - they just want somewhere safe and affordable to live.