Build more houses, house prices come down - simples, eh?

We;ve had an awful lot of people telling us that housing is different simply building more won’t in fact reduce their price. We need to have set rents, affordable rents, subsidies from the taxpayer, absolutely anything other than a free market. This contention is wrong:

The North of England's property market was the worst-performing region in Britain for house price growth in the three months to September, with prices falling by 1.7pc, according to data from Nationwide.

A surge in the supply of new homes in the North is to blame, said Jonathan Hopper of buying agent Garrington. "Housebuilders were slow to start building again in the North, but new homes are finally coming on stream now. That jump in supply has depressed prices," he said.

The basic market contention in economics, that supply and demand will balance at a price, is true.
Increase supply while demand remains static and prices will fall.

Houses are too expensive? Build more and houses will be cheaper.

All of which does tell us how to deal with the housing problem, doesn’t it. Blow up the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors so that houses can be built that people would like to live in, where they’d like to live, in the number desired. House prices will then come down.

Contrary to protestations, markets work.