Morning:
14°c
The missing For Sale notice said it all. For the past three months a nearby terraced house, identical to mine, has been on the market. But the other day, with no satisfactory offer on the table, the vendors took it off. A sign of the times in London's fastchanging property sector.
When we bought, this time last year, our Archway house was on and off the market in a matter of hours. We viewed it for 10 minutes in a conveyor-belt queue of couples, placed our bid a half-hour later, and discovered we'd fought off four other parties within the hour. That was typical of the rate property was shifting in London.
But even as we bought into the house-price hysteria, we knew it couldn't last. Across Britain, prices are predicted to fall by 12 per cent in the coming year.
So there's no getting away from it. I bought at the top of the market. Even if interest rates dip, my mortgage remains vast and - unless I change lenders - will demand feeding until I'm in my sixties. No early retirement for me, then.
Of course, I have no intention of staying put till then. Who does nowadays? We've become hooked on the notion that property is the key to a more prosperous life. An investment first and foremost. A home second. It's the very same attitude that's put our houses - and most basic personal security - at risk.
I've witnessed first hand how prices were ramped up by an unholy association of greedy owners, out for what they could get in an overheated market, and estate agents on the make. Now, those of us who bought recently are lumbered with mortgages we'll struggle to pay if the credit crunch really bites.
Yet I can't be the only one to think there was something grotesque about the high-risk games we played with our homes. And a touch of karma about the imminent economic "correction".
Frankly, I find it a relief that the heat has gone out of property. For one thing, I can stop checking out estate agent windows, just in case, when I visit Primrose Hill. And though I can't imagine staying there for ever, I can start focusing on my house as a longer-term proposition. Not just a rung on the slippery property ladder.
Judging by the number of stripped shutters and newly painted front doors, most of the homes in the streets where I live are recent purchases. And the new population is made up of people like us: young professionals who grabbed the coattails of the housing boom.
It's a long shot, but maybe a slump will be good for London. People staying put means they'll lay down roots. Communities - like mine - may flourish. And what's wrong with being content with where you live? The obsession with moving up a level, property wise, just leads to affluenza - a corrosive dissatisfaction with where you're at.
A housing crisis will hurt Londoners. But it might just remind us that's there's more to life than the next move. And a house is a home, not a moneyspinner.
