:00:00. > :00:08.Property prices are rising at their fastest rate for years. Estate
:00:09. > :00:13.agents are kind of acting like bouncers. There were 156 confirmed
:00:14. > :00:17.to come today and look round the property. We are finding there is a
:00:18. > :00:20.real sense of urgency in the market, people wanting to buy a house and
:00:21. > :00:25.get in and do it now. Many families are being priced out of the market
:00:26. > :00:30.altogether. The goal posts of home ownership are going further and
:00:31. > :00:35.further away. The Government's got a plan to help people on to the
:00:36. > :00:40.housing ladder. I couldn't have bought the house without the Help To
:00:41. > :00:43.Buy scheme, I would have had to wait a long time. So I know it's been
:00:44. > :00:49.really useful and got me this house. But is it adding fuel to an already
:00:50. > :00:53.overheating market? It's like pouring petrol over the car and
:00:54. > :00:56.setting light to the whole thing. You might get a little heat in the
:00:57. > :01:00.short-term but the end result is not actually what you wanted. And this
:01:01. > :01:03.at a time when the effects of the last property crash are still being
:01:04. > :01:08.felt. You have just lost your pension, your hopes, your dreams in
:01:09. > :01:13.bricks and mortar. Tonight, Panorama asks: Are rising prices creating an
:01:14. > :01:30.unsustainable property bubble? The British love their homes. And,
:01:31. > :01:35.unlike some of our European neighbours, we love to own them.
:01:36. > :01:41.Twelve years ago, home ownership peaked at around 70% of households.
:01:42. > :01:45.Now it's falling. First-time buyers used to get an early start - eight
:01:46. > :01:51.years ago two-thirds were under 30 and able to buy without any help.
:01:52. > :01:57.But now, it's turning into a marathon. With only around a quarter
:01:58. > :02:00.under 30 when they get the keys to their first home. Getting on the
:02:01. > :02:10.housing ladder is becoming tougher and tougher.
:02:11. > :02:16.You wouldn't know it, though, in the offices of estate agents. Hi, it's
:02:17. > :02:21.Dean... More people work in property now than since records began 35
:02:22. > :02:24.years ago. And with the economy picking up, they're busier than
:02:25. > :02:31.ever. 23-year-old Dean Leslie is surfing the waves of the latest
:02:32. > :02:34.property boom. So, as you can see, the market's very busy at the
:02:35. > :02:37.moment. Probably doing about twice as much as we were last year and we
:02:38. > :02:41.are finding there is a real sense of urgency in the market, people
:02:42. > :02:45.wanting to buy a house and get in and do it now.
:02:46. > :02:51.This has led to frantic scenes in some parts of London. I am a
:02:52. > :02:56.first-time buyer looking for a property in East London. I am about
:02:57. > :03:01.to go and look at one here in Walthamstow, an open viewing.
:03:02. > :03:04.31-year-old Jono Leyton, who runs his own digital marketing company,
:03:05. > :03:08.has a combined income, with his wife, of ?70,000. Today, he's
:03:09. > :03:20.joining the queue to view a 2-bedroom flat. The guide price is
:03:21. > :03:25.?250,000. It's quite tight on space. It's really nice. But it's not huge.
:03:26. > :03:29.But more worrying than that really is just the number of people that
:03:30. > :03:34.are going to be putting offers in on it. I heard the estate agent said
:03:35. > :03:37.there were 156 viewings today. 300 people viewed the flat in three
:03:38. > :03:45.hours, according to the estate agent. Basically the estate agents
:03:46. > :03:49.are kind of acting like bouncers, it's like one in, one out. It's
:03:50. > :03:56.madness, it's like being at a nightclub. The average price of a
:03:57. > :04:01.property in the UK hit a record high of ?247,000 in August. Nationally,
:04:02. > :04:07.prices are rising by almost 4% a year. In London, prices are up more
:04:08. > :04:13.than 8%, in part fuelled by foreign buyers. In the East Midlands they're
:04:14. > :04:21.up 3.8%, in the North West 2.3%, and in the South West prices are up
:04:22. > :04:26.2.6%. Only in Scotland are property prices falling. So how did
:04:27. > :04:32.first-time buyer Jono get on in East London? It was open for viewing just
:04:33. > :04:41.on one day, on the Saturday. It sold on the Monday. It was on a guide
:04:42. > :04:44.price of ?250,000. It sold for ?320,000. Do you think that sort of
:04:45. > :04:52.activity prices you out of the market? Whether it prices me out
:04:53. > :04:57.completely... Yeah. It might do? It might well, yeah. Some property
:04:58. > :05:02.prices are rising so fast, they're forcing people into a punishing
:05:03. > :05:05.financial workout. Research by the charity Shelter, reveals that in
:05:06. > :05:08.over half the country, 90% of homes suitable for a family are
:05:09. > :05:16.unaffordable to those on an average income. In some areas we found there
:05:17. > :05:20.is no properties available to an average family such as Brighton and
:05:21. > :05:25.Cambridge. In other places such as West Somerset and York only 2% or 3%
:05:26. > :05:30.are there homes that were available to people on an average wage. An
:05:31. > :05:35.opinion poll for Panorama suggests that 46% of people think property
:05:36. > :05:38.prices are too high in their area. It also suggests that 10%t more
:05:39. > :05:46.people want prices to fall than rise. That's a reversal from last
:05:47. > :05:48.year. Traditionally, people in the UK have borrowed between
:05:49. > :05:56.three-and-a-half and four times their income to buy a home. And that
:05:57. > :06:00.has been seen as a sensible amount to borrow. But today, across England
:06:01. > :06:04.the ratio is almost double that, with the average home costing almost
:06:05. > :06:09.seven times average income. In parts of London, it can range from ten to
:06:10. > :06:15.23 times income. And that can make finding the money for a deposit
:06:16. > :06:18.increasingly difficult. Most tellingly, if you look at the
:06:19. > :06:21.typical deposit on a typical first-time buyer house, and compare
:06:22. > :06:26.that to the average income of someone on a low to modest income,
:06:27. > :06:31.about ?20,000. Saving for the deposit used to take about three
:06:32. > :06:35.years in the 1980s, early 90s, today that figure is 22 years. In truth,
:06:36. > :06:38.people aren't saving up for 22 years to buy a house. We are seeing fewer
:06:39. > :06:43.people entering the market in the first place. But help is now at
:06:44. > :06:46.hand. Last April, the Government launched a new initiative designed
:06:47. > :06:53.to help those struggling to save a deposit to buy a new home. Any
:06:54. > :06:57.growth inside that box, Chancellor? The scheme's called Help to Buy and
:06:58. > :07:00.can be used to purchase properties worth up to ?600,000. We are going
:07:01. > :07:04.to help families who want a mortgage for any home they're buying, old or
:07:05. > :07:09.new, but who cannot begin to afford the kind of deposits being demanded
:07:10. > :07:22.today. Since the financial crisis in 2008, banks have required far bigger
:07:23. > :07:26.deposits. The Government hopes Help to Buy is the answer. Buyers of new
:07:27. > :07:29.build properties can get a loan for 20% of the purchase price direct
:07:30. > :07:34.from Government, or, in other words, direct from the taxpayer. They only
:07:35. > :07:38.have to dip their hand into their own pocket for 5% of the purchase
:07:39. > :07:42.price. They then go to the mortgage lender with a 25% deposit and bingo,
:07:43. > :07:54.they get their mortgage, and their home. The writing on the top says
:07:55. > :07:58.the Gruffalo, what's that... Toni Stott is a primary school teacher in
:07:59. > :08:01.Oldham. She's the type of person Help to Buy is aimed at. Earning
:08:02. > :08:07.around ?30,000 - just above the national average - 25-year-old Toni
:08:08. > :08:16.has always been keen to buy a house. She's used Help to Buy to fight her
:08:17. > :08:19.way onto the housing ladder. Thanks to the scheme Toni bought her
:08:20. > :08:28.new 3-bedroomed home two months ago with just a 5% deposit. What was it
:08:29. > :08:32.like when you came first to have a look at the house before you bought
:08:33. > :08:36.it? There was only one house left of this style that I got. There was me
:08:37. > :08:38.and one other girl looking round. I remember saying to the lady, she
:08:39. > :08:43.can't have it, it's going to be mine! She's like OK, we will sort it
:08:44. > :08:47.out. It looks a lovely house, are you going to show me around? Do the
:08:48. > :08:57.grand tour, you lead and I will follow. We will start with upstairs.
:08:58. > :09:01.It cost ?125,000. Without Help to Buy it would have taken her years to
:09:02. > :09:06.save for a deposit. This is the bathroom. Green accessories at the
:09:07. > :09:12.minute, but I think we are going to be that to a nice bright pink.
:09:13. > :09:16.Nothing that a trip to the local DIY store can't fix. Home-owners
:09:17. > :09:21.spending here boost the economy. What's more, increased construction
:09:22. > :09:27.leads to more employment. Shall we go with that one? That one? Yeah.
:09:28. > :09:34.There's no doubt that making a new home - with a little help from your
:09:35. > :09:39.friends - is exciting. And there was light! Fantastic.
:09:40. > :09:43.Let's go and do the others. Do you get the sense that everyone's
:09:44. > :09:47.snapping them up? Yeah, they seem to have gone up quite quickly and gone
:09:48. > :09:51.quickly. Could you have bought the house without Help To Buy? No, it's
:09:52. > :09:55.been really helpful for me. I would have had to wait a long time for it
:09:56. > :10:01.to happen. It's been really useful and got me this house. So far, more
:10:02. > :10:06.than 12,000 people have taken advantage of this phase of Help to
:10:07. > :10:10.Buy. But will it kick-start the construction industry as the
:10:11. > :10:14.Government hopes? It's estimated that 240,000 new homes will have to
:10:15. > :10:21.be built in England every year for 20 years to satisfy the need for
:10:22. > :10:25.housing. What we have had to do during the economic downturn is slow
:10:26. > :10:28.down in lots of cases the pace of build because we've not got enough
:10:29. > :10:31.customers able to access the mortgage market to buy our
:10:32. > :10:35.properties. As those customers are able to access the mortgage market,
:10:36. > :10:42.through Help To Buy, through funding for lending, through a general
:10:43. > :10:48.thawing in the lending criteria, then we are increasing the rate of
:10:49. > :10:52.build as fast as we can to meet that demand.
:10:53. > :10:55.There are signs that Help To Buy is having an impact. There's been a 6%
:10:56. > :10:58.rise in the number of new homes being built since the scheme was
:10:59. > :11:01.launched. But critics question whether Government intervention in
:11:02. > :11:04.the housing market will do more harm than good. I think Help To Buy is
:11:05. > :11:06.really the wrong solution to the problem. We have a very clear
:11:07. > :11:09.problem which everybody recognises, which is that house prices in
:11:10. > :11:12.Britain are too high. Now there are two solutions to that problem. One
:11:13. > :11:15.is to help people borrow a great deal more money than they can afford
:11:16. > :11:18.to borrow to pay prices that are too high. The second solution is to
:11:19. > :11:22.allow prices to come down to a level at which people can afford to buy
:11:23. > :11:25.them without taking on undue levels of debt. Now if I were in charge, I
:11:26. > :11:32.would say that the second solution would be a significantly kinder
:11:33. > :11:35.solution than the first. In Yorkshire, the north-east, in
:11:36. > :11:38.Scotland, house prices have moved very little or in some cases have
:11:39. > :11:41.gone backwards and that's reflecting where wages are and what money
:11:42. > :11:44.people have to spend. The Government avenues got a responsibility to
:11:45. > :11:49.address the housing market right across the country, not just in
:11:50. > :11:53.active areas like London. There is something very odd about
:11:54. > :11:56.the current property price boom. Taking account of inflation property
:11:57. > :12:03.prices are rising at the same time as wages are falling. Over the last
:12:04. > :12:07.four years, real wages have fallen to the level they were a decade ago.
:12:08. > :12:10.That's partly because basic costs have rocketed - food's up 17%,
:12:11. > :12:19.energy prices up 23%, transport costs are up 38%. That's creating a
:12:20. > :12:27.punishing gap in many people's finances.
:12:28. > :12:29.Abi Reilly is a special needs school teacher living in Reading with her
:12:30. > :12:37.husband Chris and two children, five-year-old Daniel and
:12:38. > :12:43.four-month-old Elsie. They rent a terraced house but would like to
:12:44. > :12:49.own. Do you feel that home ownership is a realistic goal? No, it feels
:12:50. > :12:53.too far away. Too far away. Pay for the average worker stays the same,
:12:54. > :12:58.well, teacher's salary has certainly been frozen. My husband's salary has
:12:59. > :13:02.probably gone down. How can we save for a deposit when our rents are
:13:03. > :13:06.going up? Energy is going up. Everything is going up. Wages stay
:13:07. > :13:12.the same. House prices go up. Mathematically it doesn't work. Abi
:13:13. > :13:15.and Chris have moved 13 times in the last ten years. They're among the
:13:16. > :13:23.8.5 million people renting privately in England today - more than at any
:13:24. > :13:28.stage since the 1970s. More than half want to own a home but can't
:13:29. > :13:32.afford to. It's wanting to put down roots with the family in a
:13:33. > :13:36.community. Where we live now, we absolutely love. We've got a very
:13:37. > :13:40.good school for Daniel. I want to be able to know that I can stay in that
:13:41. > :13:44.area and bring my children up there, but really, even if I am a really
:13:45. > :13:48.good tenant, if my landlord wants his house back, he gets his house
:13:49. > :13:52.back. The Help to Buy scheme is meant to
:13:53. > :13:56.open doors to families like the Reillys, but for Abi the maths still
:13:57. > :14:02.doesn't work. I've looked into it and you still need 5% of a deposit.
:14:03. > :14:07.Well, 5% of a value of a house in Reading that we would need is still
:14:08. > :14:11.unachievable. How long would it take you to save a 5% deposit? By the
:14:12. > :14:18.time we'd saved up the children would be grown up, put it that way.
:14:19. > :14:23.About 20 years probably. Abi and Chris together earn around ?38,000 a
:14:24. > :14:28.year. Even if they could find the deposit, using Help To Buy, they'd
:14:29. > :14:32.have ?175,000 to spend. The only property we could show them within
:14:33. > :14:39.their budget and where they want to live is a one-bedroom flat for about
:14:40. > :14:46.?130,000. Here it is. Shall we have a look? Let's go and have a look.
:14:47. > :14:49.You first. You have to do a little bit of a
:14:50. > :14:57.dance here, because this is the shower room. No bath, I'm afraid.
:14:58. > :15:02.OK. That's going to be an issue with the baby. That's the toilet. This
:15:03. > :15:06.is, I'd say the master bedroom, but it really is the bedroom. This is
:15:07. > :15:12.it. All four of you would have to sleep here. A bit depressing. I
:15:13. > :15:17.would love to own a home but it would need to be a home that can
:15:18. > :15:22.accommodate us. Which this can't. No, and as we have discussed it's
:15:23. > :15:26.the price range. So Help to Buy's no help to Abi, because what's suitable
:15:27. > :15:32.in her area is too expensive. She's left with no option but to continue
:15:33. > :15:36.renting. What we are seeing is the largest number of families ever in
:15:37. > :15:43.the private represented sector shall - rented sector, paying effectively
:15:44. > :15:48.dead money for properties that they've only got six months. We are
:15:49. > :15:52.also seeing a group of families stuck in properties that they can't
:15:53. > :15:55.afford to get out of and may have two or three children and can't
:15:56. > :15:58.afford to get a bigger property and are struggling to keep their
:15:59. > :16:02.families going in those circumstances. So whether renting or
:16:03. > :16:05.owning, how much do we spend on keeping a roof over our heads? Our
:16:06. > :16:09.survey suggests that of those who don't own a property outright 31%
:16:10. > :16:12.are spending more than a third of their disposable income on housing.
:16:13. > :16:15.But according to organisations like Shelter, spending more than 35% of
:16:16. > :16:27.disposable income on rent or mortgages can leave people unable to
:16:28. > :16:29.afford other basic needs. The situation has certainly reached
:16:30. > :16:41.crisis point for single dad Chris Whatley. We have pizza for tea,
:16:42. > :16:44.darling, yeah. He lives in a council flat in Salisbury with his
:16:45. > :16:51.15-year-old daughter who stays with him at weekends and 20-year-old son.
:16:52. > :16:57.Some chips, I think. A bit of salad, as well. Chris works full-time in a
:16:58. > :17:02.job that pays about ?850 a month after tax, well below the national
:17:03. > :17:11.average. He doesn't receive any benefits, other than the council
:17:12. > :17:17.flat he lives in. Hi, Chris. Hi. I am Adam, nice to see you. Under half
:17:18. > :17:20.my wages goes on my rent, you know, and then you've got your council tax
:17:21. > :17:25.to pay. And that's before you do anything else, you know, that's
:17:26. > :17:31.before you put a tin of beans in the cupboard, you know, you've got half
:17:32. > :17:36.your wages are gone already. Have you got enough for food for the
:17:37. > :17:42.family? Some weeks, no, in a nutshell. This time of the month,
:17:43. > :17:46.another two weeks before I get my pay again and the cupboard can be
:17:47. > :17:52.empty. How difficult is that for you? Well, for me, I can deal with
:17:53. > :17:59.it, you know, but sort of for the kids, I am sure it's not, you know,
:18:00. > :18:02.the best deal, is it really? After Chris has paid his rent, council
:18:03. > :18:09.tax, energy bills and other monthly expenses he's left with ?40 a week
:18:10. > :18:18.for food. That's around ?6 a day to cover all three meals.
:18:19. > :18:23.So what about the meat here, can you afford that? Once in a blue moon I
:18:24. > :18:28.can afford something like that, yeah. But ?6, sometimes that's all I
:18:29. > :18:32.have to spend in a day. I could buy that, you know, but... There would
:18:33. > :18:40.be nothing else? Not much going with it, know what I mean.
:18:41. > :18:45.Looking at getting a couple of pizzas now... I don't like feeding
:18:46. > :18:52.my kids rubbish, but sometimes I have no choice. Budget chips.
:18:53. > :18:56.Earlier this year, Chris hit a financial brick wall. The only way
:18:57. > :19:01.to feed his family was to accept free food from a charity. I got
:19:02. > :19:10.introduced to the Trussell Trust, they gave me a food bank ticket,
:19:11. > :19:17.which at the time was... Was it tough going to the food bank?
:19:18. > :19:24.Um, mixed emotions, I suppose. I accepted it with the sort of grace
:19:25. > :19:28.that it was given to me, you know. But, slightly embarrassing, I would
:19:29. > :19:33.say, that's how it felt more than anything, you know. Does it get busy
:19:34. > :19:37.in here? Yeah, I think it does. It was when I was here last, yeah. The
:19:38. > :19:40.Trussell Trust run 400 food banks nationwide. Since April, they've
:19:41. > :19:43.handed out emergency food supplies to over 350,000 people - triple the
:19:44. > :19:52.number they helped in the same period last year. They estimate half
:19:53. > :19:57.of the people they help are working. How significant is the housing
:19:58. > :20:03.problem affecting your clients? Well, it's quite clear to us on an
:20:04. > :20:06.anecdotal basis, meeting clients that many are choorsing between
:20:07. > :20:10.paying -- choosing between paying the represent or eat -- paying the
:20:11. > :20:14.rent or eating or paying the mortgage or have a repossession
:20:15. > :20:24.order come in and eating and that's are the realities of today. Here you
:20:25. > :20:32.go, my baby girl. I would like to be able to do more for my family than I
:20:33. > :20:43.am able to. And years of not being able to do that kind of grinds you
:20:44. > :20:46.down in the end. So, with some people being stretched to financial
:20:47. > :20:52.breaking point, why are we seeing rising property prices? The answer,
:20:53. > :20:57.at least in part, lies in the decisions taken inside that
:20:58. > :21:01.building. The Bank of England has kept interest rates at their lowest
:21:02. > :21:06.level for over 300 years. And that means that it has never been cheaper
:21:07. > :21:08.to borrow money. With the added incentive provided by the
:21:09. > :21:15.Government's Help to Buy scheme, you can see why demand for housing has
:21:16. > :21:20.been rising. But borrowing is not going to be this cheap forever. The
:21:21. > :21:30.market predicts the bank rate will eventually rise nine-fold from 0.5%
:21:31. > :21:34.to 4.5%. Remember Toni Stott in Oldham who
:21:35. > :21:39.bought her first home using Help to Buy? She's fixed her repayments for
:21:40. > :21:45.three years. Are you aware that interest rates
:21:46. > :21:50.have really never been this low? No. Not for hundreds of years. No! You
:21:51. > :21:55.are not aware that this is a really unusual situation? No. Toni's
:21:56. > :22:00.probably got plenty of room for manoeuvre with her mortgage
:22:01. > :22:03.payments, should rates rise. But 600,000 households are now thought
:22:04. > :22:06.to be in debt peril - that's spending more than half of their
:22:07. > :22:14.disposable income on debt repayments. If the bank rate does
:22:15. > :22:17.rise as predicted to around 4% it's believed more than a million
:22:18. > :22:23.families could fall into serious debt. It's all about how much of
:22:24. > :22:27.your income are you allocating to repayments and anything above half
:22:28. > :22:31.is considered to be a warning sign for over indebtedness and the
:22:32. > :22:34.position at the moment is we have about 600,000 families in that
:22:35. > :22:37.position. In the future as and when interest rates start to rise that
:22:38. > :22:40.number is likely to go up and if income growth doesn't kick back in,
:22:41. > :22:48.in the way we might hope it does, we might be looking at a doubling, 1.2
:22:49. > :22:52.million, or even higher. Right now, the very low bank rate is
:22:53. > :22:54.helping many of us keep up our mortgages repayments. And that's
:22:55. > :22:58.helped push repossession figures down. But you need look no further
:22:59. > :23:02.than Northern Ireland to see what happens when people can no longer
:23:03. > :23:06.afford to pay inflated property prices. When the property bubble
:23:07. > :23:12.burst here it had devastating consequences. Property prices more
:23:13. > :23:16.or less doubled between the years 2005 and 2008 and then quickly
:23:17. > :23:23.halved in value. Now repossessions have become a major issue.
:23:24. > :23:25.This is Londonderry. Before the crash Northern Ireland had
:23:26. > :23:32.experienced one of the greatest property price rises in recent
:23:33. > :23:40.history. Brian bought his house in Derry during the boom for ?140,000
:23:41. > :23:45.and then remortgaged. In the boom times what did it feel like? Aha kid
:23:46. > :23:48.in a sweetie shop. You know, there's loads of beautiful properties.
:23:49. > :23:53.There's a load of mortgage men saying here, yeah, I can lend you
:23:54. > :23:56.money. The bubble burst five years ago. Thousands faced bankruptcy,
:23:57. > :24:03.including Brian. And the pain is still being felt.
:24:04. > :24:10.This is the little cul-de-sac you used to live in? Yeah. As the
:24:11. > :24:15.economy collapsed, Brian lost his job in IT and fell behind on his
:24:16. > :24:19.mortgage. It's an embarrassment. You can't make this payment and you do
:24:20. > :24:23.want to make it, you can't. From that point, that's when the pressure
:24:24. > :24:26.starts because you're struggling to make that payment, you know, and the
:24:27. > :24:39.next one's coming up. You are trying to get two up at that point and it
:24:40. > :24:47.spirals out of control. Brian's house was repossessed last year. The
:24:48. > :24:55.key was put under a flowerpot at the door, basically. I turned and left
:24:56. > :24:59.and a van full of my possessions. He says the bank sold his house for far
:25:00. > :25:06.less than he bought it. He's still in debt. In essence, you borrowed
:25:07. > :25:11.too much? Yeah. Should they have lent me such a high loan to value?
:25:12. > :25:17.No Was I glad to get that money at the time? Yes. Should you have taken
:25:18. > :25:19.it? No, but that's hindsight. The paralysed property market created a
:25:20. > :25:23.vicious after-effect that reverberated across Northern
:25:24. > :25:26.Ireland. It's had lasting damage to the construction industry, to
:25:27. > :25:29.individuals who are sitting in negative equity and today we are in
:25:30. > :25:32.a environment where people are extremely cautious about the
:25:33. > :25:35.property market even though prices now look reasonable given the state
:25:36. > :25:39.of the economy. So that should suggest there's lessons that can be
:25:40. > :25:42.learnt for that for other regions, particularly those outside of London
:25:43. > :25:44.that bear more similarity to the particular case here in Northern
:25:45. > :25:48.Ireland. But are those lessons being learnt
:25:49. > :25:51.in the rest of the UK? Five years ago, the global credit crunch was
:25:52. > :25:55.sparked off by a sub-prime housing crisis. Money was lent to low-income
:25:56. > :26:00.borrowers to get mortgages they otherwise couldn't afford. Could
:26:01. > :26:08.that be happening again as Help to Buy relaxes lending to those on low
:26:09. > :26:11.to middle incomes? I think Help To Buy is making the situation worse.
:26:12. > :26:16.It's like pouring petrol over the car and settingings light to the
:26:17. > :26:19.whole thing. You might get a little heat in the short-term but the end
:26:20. > :26:23.result is not actually what you wanted. The end result of Help To
:26:24. > :26:26.Buy is higher prices and that's not actually what we wanted. We have
:26:27. > :26:30.seen nothing yet to suggest there is anything going anywhere near a
:26:31. > :26:33.bubble at this moment in time. We have seen a lot of activity in
:26:34. > :26:37.London. There is some movement now, there is some confidence across the
:26:38. > :26:40.country but a long way to go - I think we are only at 60% of
:26:41. > :26:44.transactions that we were prior to 2008.
:26:45. > :26:47.There's a second phase of Help to Buy where the Government partially
:26:48. > :26:53.guarantees lenders offering 95% mortgages. So far, 2,000 have been
:26:54. > :26:58.approved. But Help to Buy has drawn criticism from both the political
:26:59. > :27:01.left and right. I think Help To Buy is the wrong answer to the right
:27:02. > :27:07.question. The real question here is how do we support the millions of
:27:08. > :27:12.families currently on waiting lists for housing who are hoping to get an
:27:13. > :27:17.affordable home, whether to buy or to rent and are being offered a
:27:18. > :27:21.scheme that could seat them put into unsustainable levels of debt, taking
:27:22. > :27:27.on mortgages they simply can't afford to repay? We are looking at
:27:28. > :27:30.essentially a political scheme to buy votes. This is I think something
:27:31. > :27:33.that almost everybody who's interested in policy and interested
:27:34. > :27:36.in making the housing market more sensible and more affordable is
:27:37. > :27:39.opposing and really I haven't actually met anybody who isn't
:27:40. > :27:45.involved in politics who thinks this is a good idea. The open people who
:27:46. > :27:48.seem -- the only people who seem to support this are politicians and
:27:49. > :27:52.people building the housing themselves. The only people who
:27:53. > :27:56.support it are the people who make money out of it. I think that's a
:27:57. > :28:01.cynical response. Tell me one who supports it. The customers out there
:28:02. > :28:05.They're involved. You are missing that bit out, you are saying this is
:28:06. > :28:09.all about profit. This is not just about profit. This is about people
:28:10. > :28:14.getting on to the housing market. We won't know for some time what the
:28:15. > :28:17.full impact of Help to Buy will be. But for now many predict that
:28:18. > :28:21.property prices will continue to rise. As house prices increase,
:28:22. > :28:26.wages remain the same and the cost of living generally rocketing, the
:28:27. > :28:31.goal posts of home ownership are just going further and further and
:28:32. > :28:35.further away. For Abi, and the thousands like her, only a fall in
:28:36. > :28:39.property prices - back in line with average earnings - will help realize
:28:40. > :28:49.their dream of one day, owning their own home.