In a letter to the FT published on 14th April I observed that America had done well for about 50 years to avoid our irrational obsession with leveraged home ownership as a route to wealth creation. Would that we had been so lucky. Of course, they could not resist our corrosive export for ever and now they are paying a heavy price for it.

Knocking the housing myth is about as heretical as suggesting global warming is all hot air. It needs all the heretics we can muster. So it was good to see on the facing page an article by Martin Weale, director of the National Institute for Economic and Social Research, in which he says: ‘Encouraged by the Treasury, voters have enjoyed the fools’ paradise. Only now are they starting to realise that rising house prices do not create wealth any more than credit booms do. They simply transfer it from future generations to current property owners.’ Keep it coming.

TAGS: house prices