I have discussed this matter before at some length but have never properly considered the part that valuers have played in what most people now accept was a property bubble that started – at least in the UK – in the 1970s. I use a real example to illustrate my points. In 1975 I purchased my first home. It cost 13,600 and my salary as a 25 year old newly qualified accountant was 3,400. The property was sold earlier this year for £370,000, a multiple of 27.21 times. The salary of a newly qualified accountant today is around 40,000. That is a multiple of 11.76 times. The value of that particular property has therefore increased in real terms by 2.3 times. That, everybody will agree is a serious capital gain. How did property come to increase in real terms to such an extent. Was it because property values were too

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