Hutton on Housing

This week's obligatory howler:

The Bank of England needs to see a sharp deceleration in house-price inflation in order to meet its inflation target.

Really? Wasn't the Bank re-targetted to the CPI? The measure of inflation that doesn't include either house prices nor mortgages?

This must have been a very interesting conversation as well:

At a gathering of my wife's family last weekend I was sharply reminded of the generation gap when it comes to property. The over-35s are winners with their cushion of equity, which grows vast the nearer they are to pensionable age; the under-35s have debts that make them feel fearful at becoming losers in the property jungle.

I had conversations that I am sure are reproduced all over the country. A mother spoke of her fears that it would be impossible to move to a larger flat in the same neighbourhood to accommodate a second baby. Another said that my generation did not understand how hard it was for young people to get started these days without well-off parents.

Will's wife is a property developer and buy to let landlord.