Innovative thinking needed on housing

THERE is a country where house prices have spiralled out of all proportion to inflation, where home ownership is no longer within reach of the average-wage family and where heads have been scratched bald in bafflement over what to do about it.

Mortgage interest rates have halved in the past decade, with the response that borrowers doubled their loans, driving a demand for houses that policy makers failed to anticipate and landowners and developers were too slow to match.

Marriage numbers have been on a downward trend, resulting in more single people looking for homes of their own. Job security has lessened so more people are anxious to have property as a pension.