The Guardian has a fairly good summary of the findings of Sir James Crosby’s report into the UK housing market. Although this preliminary report does not make specific recommendations, it does talk about the kind of options which are available to the government if it wants to get the housing market moving again. Most of these revolve around various schemes to encourage banks to start lending more freely to each other and to invest in mortgage backed securities again - although as Crosby points out, any such measures might not be very effective in the short term.
It’s encouraging to note that Crosby does seem to advise caution when considering any kind of government intervention in the property market, since this could just make things worse and prolong the pain. He says “Even less desirable, however, would be interventions that distorted these markets and prolonged any recovery process. The costs of action need to be set against those of inaction.”
To us, this sounds an awful lot like “Just leave it the hell alone - it’ll all sort itself out in the end” which would be the best advice on the UK property market we’ve heard in a long time.
