My wife and I have become hooked on the national addiction: pressing our noses against the windows of estate agents, visiting unaffordably nice parts of London and flicking through real-estate porn.

Sadly, my experience as an undercover economist offers few tips on judging what the housing market will do. I would guess that it will fall over the next few years, but you should pay no more attention to that claim than if it was made by a taxi driver or a waitress.