THE TELEGRAPH: Property prices will not recover for another decade and should be viewed as "risky assets", according to PricewaterhouseCooper's Economic Outlook report.
The PwC research, published on Tuesday, not only puts British growth lower than the official Office of Budget Responsibility's (OBR) forecast but also paints a grim picture for home ownership in the UK for the next 10 years.
After 30 years of almost uninterrupted house price rises, Britons have piled in £3,500bn into bricks and mortar. Only pension contributions equal the 39pc of total net private wealth that is invested in the property market.
But according to PwC: "Housing is a risky asset that is not guaranteed to generate positive real returns in the future even though this has been the pattern in the past."
In fact, PwC says, there is a strong possibility that house prices continue to fall for the next five years and could drop further even beyond 2020. According to the report, this would significantly drag back the speed of economic recovery – which PwC claims faces a risk of a double-dip recession. >>> Helia Ebrahimi, Senior City Correspondent | Tuesday, July 13, 2010
