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The UK housing market has stalled. The latest estimate for prices from the Nationwide Building Society is that they have climbed by 1 per cent over the past year; adjusting for general inflation, that’s a fall of some 2.5 per cent in real terms. That is good news for home-buyers: since average earnings are 4.5 per cent higher than a year ago, they are 3.5 per cent more affordable.

But what will happen next? Buying a home is such a huge financial decision that anyone doing so needs to have some feeling for what might happen in the medium and long term. If they do continue to become more affordable, that would be great for anyone buying, of course, but it would mean that, as an investment, they will be less of a winner for current owners.

At worst, what is happening in London at the moment, where nearly 15 per cent of homes are sold at a loss, might become a more general and prolonged experience.

No one can make more than a best guess at what will happen, but my judgement is that the house price boom is over for a generation.

In cash terms, the general trend will continue to be upwards because inflation is not going to go away in the foreseeable future. Indeed, there may well be another surge in price increases similar to the one we have just experienced. There will be short-term swings as the economic and interest rate cycles work their way through. There will be regional shifts, with some parts of the country outpacing others.

But in real terms, it seems likely that prices will remain stable or........

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