House price campaign launched

House price campaign launched

A pressure group has been set up to attempt to rein in house price inflation and bring property back within reach of "ordinary people".

The House Price Control campaign, headed by Bob Goodall, will write to MPs and other organisations in an effort to drum up support in raising the issues of property prices and affordability.

Mr Goodall is no stranger to pressure group tactics, having previously coordinated the Save our Building Societies campaign. He said: "No one benefits from house price inflation. High house prices are an illusion of wealth that mean higher costs such as insurance.

"A person only realises the wealth if they sell their home. Then it is gone when they buy another one, unless they move away. The house price bubble has spread out so it is harder to capitalise in this way."

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He added that the campaign group's objective was to start a debate on what might be done to reduce house price inflation other than increasing supply of housing to meet ever increasing demand.

He went on to say: "Regulation is a tool for the government that costs nothing financially. The price mechanism means that with limited supply of land and increasing demand through rising population, or because people wish to live on their own, the cost of houses will continue to rise.

"With one hand people work to raise their standard of living but lose with the other as the cost of finding a home increases," he said. "The best way of ratcheting up the standard of living of people in this country is to regulate the biggest cost in their lives: housing."

However, Martin Ellis, chief economist at Halifax, said the campaign was a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. "The market has been slowing for some months. The Bank of England's decisions have already had their effect and it is cooling anyway."

He added that inflation in property prices was a reflection of market forces, and said: "If you start trying to control that then you will stunt the market."

The launch of the campaign comes a day after the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, announced a package of measures to help low and middle income families in England take their first step onto the housing ladder.

Around 300,000 council and housing association tenants will be able to buy a stake of 50% or more of their homes under the new Social Homebuy scheme, Mr Prescott told the House of Commons.

Up to 80,000 people will be helped by a series of low-cost ownership programmes, such as a first-time buyers' initiative, which will see 15,000 new starter homes built on public land, including 100 former NHS sites.

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