There was an interesting piece in the Observer about Macromarkets, Yale economist (and author of Irrational Exuberance) Robert Schiller's futures market for house prices, which launched last week in the States and may arrive in the UK in the next year. The theory is that a housing futures market will help offer the likes of you and me a little more liquidity to balance having our biggest investment tied up in a single building in a single town in a single country. In other words - a hedge. We already have spread betting and covered warrants - do we need this too?