While the bottom drops out of the residential property market in what might or might not turn out to be the most ugly and undignified economic prolapse ever suffered by the great middle classes' hearthside economy, the self-builders, the frontiers-people of the housing market, the men and the women with a dream... these people are finding themselves in an uncharacteristically privileged position. After decades of being treated like wacky longhairs, suddenly they're getting the best tables and being offered the specials. Why? They don't need to turn a profit. Their profit's built into the build.

Our publisher, in his weekly guest column, for Citywire.

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