No, it’s not different this time - House price inflation highest in EU

IRISH house prices are climbing faster than any elsewhere in the European Union so it can only be a matter of time before someone who should know a lot better suggests that we should not fret “because this time it’s different”.

Even if this surge is provoked by a huge shortage of accommodation to buy, to rent or to satisfy social housing needs the trend rings so many of the alarm bells we disastrously ignored a decade ago that it would be reckelss not to sit up and take notice.

A recovering economy — also the fastest growing in Europe we are assured — falling unemployment figures and some of the world’s highest prices for farm land all feed into what can only be described as an increasingly fraught situation. What can be done to avert another soft-landing-gone-wrong is another matter entirely.