Can't see it as a crash, PS, even though the bottom tier of the market, the foundations of affordable first time housing, is as tough now as it was in the late 80s, the last time the bubble burst. Interest rates are less than half what they were then, and even though this week's inflation and retail sales figures suggest we'll see a hike in UK interest rates in November, it's unlikely, on its own, to precipitate a collapse.

Even if house prices do trend lower, with interest rates not really hurting currently, and the average affluence index higher than probably any time ever, negative equity suffers will just sit tight and force the market back up.

I felt very clever in the late 80s, as the crash was so easy to predict. I was bouncing around the Solent in a yacht, doing my skipper's ticket, the week after the great hurricane in October 1987. That was Black Monday, that followed the hurricane on the Thursday night before, and I naively thought that the slide was UK insurance stocks falling out of bed with storm damage claims on a pandemic basis! That was then and this is now. Then, first time buyers didn't stand a hope in hell of getting on the ladder, and the foundations of the housing market didn't exist.

Now, we are told the national housing stock is in deficit, and first timers are clubbing together or finding alternatives to get on the ladder, so no, with all of the above factors, I don't see a crash of any magnitude soon, short of any 'Events, dear boy!'