The solution is simple: build more houses to increase supply. It needs to be said: there is a drastic shortage of decent housing in the UK. The cost of building a new house is approaching less than half the final sale price (if not even less) simply due to pressure from scarcity.

Why aren’t people building as many new houses as there’s clearly demand? Numerous factors: greenbelt laws, height restrictions, “Right to light”, NIMBYism, etc. I don’t believe I’ve seen either major political party advance a policy of making it easier to build new houses - or tall tower blocks (the nice kind, not the 1960s council flag blocks), I suspect because it would result in immediate uproar from the Daily Mail-reading types who can’t bear to see their house-values fall (I think Sunday Observer types would be a bit miffed too, if not about house prices then certainly the ecological impact: having lived in multiple countries in my life I noticed the “rural-rights” types that advocate preserving hedgerows and rambling access have a considerably larger influence in UK politics compared to other countries).