Hardly a day goes by without some journalist or politician mention that housing has become "unaffordable". However, a few moments' thought is all it needs to realize that if a house is unaffordable then it must mean that no-one who would consider buying that house can afford to buy it. Such houses would then be sitting on an estate agent's books, probably empty.
That doesn't match up with what the RICS are saying,:
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) said the number of properties sitting on estate agents’ books fell to just 43 per branch in March, the lowest figure since the body started collecting the data in 1978.
Of course, what "unaffordable" really means is "I, a middle class, middle income person can no longer afford to live where I would like to live and where I could afford to live twenty years ago", but that's somewhat more long-winded than a single snappy word.
Debate Magazine
