By Robin Bowman, Property Secrets

For high property price growth, you need markets in which a series of economic fundamentals are in place - basically plenty of investment, job creation and an aspirational society that's motivated, confident (and has the means) to buy property.

You need high affordability for the domestic buyer and a rapidly expanding and increasingly vibrant mortgage market - expanding from a relatively low penetration level.

Not really the sort of pattern we'd expect to see during, or immediately post, a credit crunch, then!

What we see instead is highly cautious (and therefore less) investment, much tighter credit conditions and generally less confidence.