House prices rises are engineered. The latest bubble was created by offering huge tax breaks to landlords who would take on a mortgage on buy-to-let property.

This is easy money for the banks. They get most of the rental income in mortgage payments on a secured loan, while using the landlords as agents.

Foreign investors go where the bubbles are, and leave when the bubbles pop - which the London bubble is doing now.

Anyone who got in after 2008 made out like a bandit. But the party is over now, and we could be moving into hangover territory.