With the first half of the year already behind us, what’s really going on in the London property market? Property bubble, property boom, are just a few of the favourite property guru’s expressions flying around. It’s everywhere, in the papers on the news, yes we have had an extremely surprising 2014 so far. Momentum for this fierce unexpected market started gathering pace around July last year when overnight we had a sudden surge of prices which seemed to be a result of the governments Help to Buy Scheme introduced earlier that year. And to date the market still shows no signs of let up when it comes to buying. With the latest data from Rightmove showing a record high in asking prices in may this year, sealed bids, and soaring property prices along with all the continuing hype seem to contribute to this crazy climate. With buyers still demanding more properties vendors are becoming extremely greedy, because they can, but some of their expectations need to be managed. Vendors that demand unrealistic asking prices will find that their properties will attract very little interest if any from buyers until they are reduced to a realistic level. There may be a huge supply and demand issue right now and it is definitely a seller’s market but buyers are not silly and know when they are being taken for a ride. Now of course we already have the banks and building society’s warning of a natural correction in the coming months and the Bank of England has already hinted at an interest rate increase later in the year or beginning of 2015 which would help to cool off the market somewhat. Word on the street is that the governor of the Bank of England is considering making it more expensive for banks to give out mortgages as well as cutting high loan to value lending, curtailing the Help to Buy scheme along with some other measures that will help with taking the steam out of the market. Property professionals welcome such measures as we all know too well that high risk lending and borrowing were what caused our economic crash at the end of 2007. So for now enjoy the ride but looming ahead we will see a natural cooling off and levelling out of the market. I believe it is sustainable and prices will pan out and remain static for some time before we see some more steady growth in years to come. Contrary to some reports I don’t believe we will see another crash as I think we learned the hard way last time, enough for the powers that be to sit up and take notice to ensure this will not happen again.