This Is Money Show

Another week, another house price index stating record growth. This time it was the turn of Nationwide, which said prices had risen 10.9 per cent in the year to April, reaching a new high of £242,832 - up by £23,930 compared with 12 months earlier. Most experts say this is down to people's changing lifestyles during the pandemic and the incentive provided by the Government's stamp duty holiday. But are there other forces at play? Fred Harrison, a British author and economic commentator, successfully predicted the previous two property crashes years before they occurred - and his 18-year property cycle theory says that house prices should continue to boom before crashing in 2026. His theory is based on analysis of 300 years of data, and suggests that the underlying force behind rising prices in the property market is the finite supply of land. This, he says, combines with greed and speculation to turbo-charge sentiment and send prices spiralling before a bubble bursts. Given that early predictions of a h