More reasons to stay out of the market
Interesting to see that this thread was started in May and the question posed at the time even brought a 'Yes' response.
Now, no one would even bother to ask the question, let alone put their name to a suggestion that it was a good idea (though to be fair to James, he does warn that values are unlikely to rise over the next 5 years.)
It just shows how rapidly things can change. In the space of just 2 months all hell has broken loose in the housing market. Yet the signs were there for all to see a year or more ago.
Property prices had been rising inexorably across the globe, not only in the UK. Much of the rise was 'inexplicable' in sound economic terms - ie, excluding interest rates, income growth and demographics. An IMF report examined property price increases from 1997 to 2007 and on pure fundamentals and made adjustments for inflation.
Britain showed a 'gap' above real values of 28%; Ireland 32%. So, arguably until prices fall by this amount, property remains overvalued. This, of course, is aside from the downward pressure likely to be exerted by recessionary factors et al.
As is so often the case, most of us only see what was there all along after the event.