By Robinson Jackson's General Manager

Ron Kennor

There seems to be a lot of highly qualified and well resourced ‘experts on the property market’ working for the media who are indeed highly educated but have no association with, and little knowledge of, our housing market.

Many years prior to becoming a local estate agent my limited education in their field was very basic ‘O’ level economics, the foundation of which stated that any market price is the equilibrium point between supply and demand. As far as I know this golden rule still applies to all products - apart, it seems, to house prices in the UK where some economists are disregarding it.

We have a growing population becoming wealthier with high expectations of an improving standard of living and a tendency to live in smaller families. Combine this with a shortage of building land, created by our planning system and the ultimate physical restrictions of our island, and it is clear to me we will in the short, medium and long term have a supply which is unlikely EVER to meet  the demand.

The stock market may be in turmoil because it’s comparatively easy to issue and print more shares and is driven by the by the emotions of fear and greed. Apart from food and water shelter, in the form of a comfortable home is, and will always be, the number 1 essential priority for all of us almost regardless of the sacrifices made to obtain it.

It seems to me these economists are treating housing as just another commodity which can be freely bought and sold and are missing the essential importance of a family home which continues to defy their predictions of a mass sell off forcing prices down. In reality, of course there is no surplus in the UK to allow this to happen - unlike other markets which are much more fluid and well stocked as currently in Spain, and the US where the problems began.

Any slowdown in our housing market should be seen as a rare buying opportunity for those who need to buy a home, sooner rather than later when history demonstrates it will cost them more.

 Through the mists of time I also remember my O level economics teacher talking about substitutes like the price of margarine rising with the price of butter.  As far as I can see there is no comparable substitute for a place to live. And anyway, I could always tell Stork from butter as I think the buying public can tell the difference between volatility and validity.