This is an interesting comment from Lombard much of which I would agree with. However, I have run the figures on 'available stock' of homes for sale against 'completed sales' each month right back to 2003. The average is a very neat 10 with the maximum of 16.93 in January 2005. The lowest was 12 months later in Dec 2006 when the ratio fell to 6.43.

The number of completed sales compared to total stock has fallen each month since May last year and last month was 7.14 - down from 12.85 at the start of the year.

I'm not sure that the 'lead relationship' for house prices that Mr Dannhauser has spotted is that clear.

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