HOUSE PRICES ‘TO LEAP 3.4 PER CENT NEXT YEAR’

The prediction — in the BNP Paribas Real Estate housing report published today and compiled by Professor Patrick Minford, a former economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher — is in contrast to a ­Reuters poll of City economists this month which found prices would remain flat before returning to growth in 2011. Professor Minford also predicts house prices will fall 9.9 per cent this year.

He said the extraordinary measures taken by the Bank of England and the Government, including printing money and nationalising stricken banks, had eased the severity of the current property slump.