The attention of the media has been captured by a longterm house price report by the Halifax research department. The headlines:

• house prices have risen, on average, 2.7% more than inflation each of the last fifty years.
• earnings have increased 2% per year.
• the biggest single increase was in the last decade... 62%.
• the average uk home has increased by 273% since 1959.
• in modern money, the average house would have cost £43,000 in 1959
• in 1959, one in seven homes had outside toilets.
• in 2009, one in 500 homes had outside toilets.
• interestingly, four distinct, but relatively short, house price booms have been responsible for the inflation-busting gains. Outside of these periods, the norm for house prices is stagnation or fall.

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