IT HAS been important as an estate agent to monitor the media coverage regarding concerns the Bank of England has aired about the potential overheating of the housing market.

This has primarily been because house inflation can lead to growing inflation in the economy, which in turn would lead to an earlier rising of interest rates.

I am sure many readers with savings would welcome this, however despite some earlier sabre-rattling by the Bank of England and even news of ever-more scrupulous lending criteria by the mortgage lenders, we at Besley Hill Town & Country Homes have been delighted by the ongoing and positive activity continuing in the housing market.

Whilst it is true that house prices seem to have levelled out over the summer months, it has certainly not meant that transaction levels have dropped off or that the market appears to be in danger of stalling and plunging us back into the old boom-and-bust cycles of the past.

So maybe the Bank of England and the lenders are getting the balance right between stimulating the economy and responsible lending.

This still doesn’t address the age-old chestnut of younger buyers struggling to get on to the housing ladder.

It seems impossible to correct the problem without some kind of government control over house prices but then what homeowner would vote for a political party with that idea in their manifesto?

The housing market is a free market force and despite government Help to Buy schemes, it is difficult not to think that such schemes have only contributed to prices rising.

Then there is the question of London prices rising out of control with international investment money no doubt continuing to influence market forces there.

This has had a minor rippling effect across the nation but the reality is that the only solution seems to be to build more homes so that supply is more in line with demand, levelling prices over time and giving people’s incomes and younger buyers a chance to catch up.