A glance at any national newspaper in recent weeks and you cannot fail to have noticed – beyond the covid-19 gloom – that it is boom-time in the housing market. With people having apparently reassessed their lives and homes during the first lockdown, and the chancellor having obliged their itchy feet with a stamp-duty holiday, the market is by most measures hotter than it has been in years.

Many – naturally – initially feared the impact on the housebuilding sector of a pandemic likely to see hundreds of thousands lose their livelihoods and job security, predicting double-digit house price falls. The latest data from Nationwide instead suggests that prices are now nearly 7% up on where they were back in March.

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