Snowmail: falling house prices

Last Modified: 08 Apr 2008
By: Krishnan Guru-Murthy

On tonight's show...

Britain's biggest mortgage lender reveals a startling figure today. House prices have fallen 2.5& in March alone and even the Halifax are now predicting that annual house price growth is going into reverse. The question is: by how much?

Housing bubble

While the consensus from economists and lenders seems to be between 5 and 10 per cent, the truth is there are huge unknown factors to this. The comparison to 1992 may sound easy, but doesn't necessarily stack up.

Back then, it was high interest rates, high inflation and unemployment that helped tip hundreds of thousands of people over the edge. Today, it's about confidence, the credit crunch and a housing bubble that saw prices rise too high, too fast.

Tonight, what will be the effect of falling house prices? Is it necessarily a bad thing? We're also working on the politics of all this.

On the day Gordon Brown gave a hurried interview trying to reassure us, people in his own party are accusing him of being out of touch and of not doing enough to avoid the impending crisis. Is there a whiff of panic in Downing Street?

Iraq 'surge' overview

Also tonight. After American's leading general David Petraeus in Iraq and its ambassador in Baghdad came to Washington to deliver a pretty downbeat report, we will be talking to one of the architects of the 'surge', General Jack Keane.

Last time he gave a major British interview, he suggested the Brits were not doing enough. I'll be asking him tonight what he thinks of us now.

Was the Olympic torch relay an error?

We'll have more on the gathering storm surrounding the Olympic torch relay. China has been issuing furious responses, but the protest is set to get worse in San Fran tomorrow.

Was this whole relay a mistake? And more than that, has the whole idea of sending the games to Beijing started to look like an ill-thought-through hope that it would bring China closer to the rest of the world?

Zimbabwe latest

We also hope to have a film from our foreign affairs correspondent Jonathan Miller who has just come out of Zimbabwe with his account of how the chaos over the election and the possibility of a new Zanu-PF campaign to stir up nationalist feeling is affecting people in the country.

All that and much more. See you at seven. Krishnan.