Has the FPC done enough?

None of the measures announced by the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) last week seem likely to sap the recovery in house prices of its current momentum or prevent the overall level of household debt from rising markedly.

Admittedly, there are still a whole series of actions the FPC could take in the future if the housing market gets out of control. Nonetheless, the timidity of its actions so far and the UK’s long history of housing market excesses suggests that it would be foolish to discount the prospect of the MPC having to cool the market with interest rate rises further down the line.