But for all the chatter of a new state-backed bubble, prices are rising at a modest pace nationally. The LSL Acadametrics Index, which I view as the most reliable guide to the market in England and Wales, showed annual house price inflation of 4.3 per cent in October - the same figure as in February, before chancellor George Osborne unleashed the latest bout of bubble-spotting with his Help to Buy policy.
One way to get a fresh perspective on this rather hackneyed debate is to head across the North Sea to Holland. Britain and the Netherlands have much in common. Dutch is the national language closest to English (West Frisian, spoken by about 500,000 individuals in the north of the country, is even closer). Both countries were once maritime superpowers, their wealth built on international trade - although the Netherlands peaked two centuries earlier. Both are small, fertile and densely populated.
This last point is of particular interest to housing market watchers. The limited supply of space in Britain, and particularly in England, is often cited as a reason why house prices can continue to rise, not just in absolute terms but also relative to incomes. England and the Netherlands have remarkably similar population densities - 407 citizens to every square kilometre in England, compared with 404 citizens in the Netherlands. So does the limited supply argument also apply there?
Recent form suggests so. The performance parallels between the two markets are uncanny. Both countries experienced unprecedented housing booms during the 1990s and early 2000s, with nominal house prices roughly tripling. And both then suffered a correction of about 20 per cent. The difference is that the Dutch correction, like the European recession more generally, came later and more gradually. Whereas the UK market bottomed out in 2009 and is now recovering, house prices in the Netherlands peaked in August 2008 and are only just beginning to stabilise. They are now back where they were in 2004 - just as UK house prices were in early 2009.
The market is now showing signs of reaching a trough, says Machiel Wolters, director of research and consultancy for the Dutch residential market at brokerage CBRE. That's despite the fact that "house prices in Holland are still perceived as high, internationally". Sure enough, one reason he cites is a shortfall of homes in the wealthier parts of the country. "There is no oversupply, and in the west of the country there is a shortage, particularly in Amsterdam and Utrecht. There the population is still growing, which will prevent house prices from dropping much further."
This shortage has been exacerbated by a post-crisis collapse in housebuilding. Mr Wolters expects completions to bottom out at an all-time low of 42,000 this year. About half the 2009 peak level and well short of the government's 75,000 target, this would add 0.6 per cent to the total housing stock. Except in the timing, the picture in England is again similar. Home completions fell 40 per cent from the 2007 high to 107,000 in 2010 - 0.5 per cent of the total stock.
All these parallels show up one crucial difference between the two markets - a difference that may be disappearing. the Netherlands has long subsidised home ownership by making mortgage interest tax-deductable. The climate of austerity is now forcing the government to retract these very costly subsidies, but this is predictably unpopular. Those that bought homes in the boom years worry that changes to the status quo will depress the market further, increasing their negative equity (as in England, it is hard to walk away from a Dutch mortgage). So far, the government has only managed to exclude interest-only mortgages. "Most people expect the subsidies to be unwound, but only very gradually," says Mr Wolters.
In Britain, mortgage-interest deductability was canned in 2000, leaving no direct subsidy for the owner-occupier sector (although, to the annoyance of landlords and economists, it remains much more lightly taxed than the private-rented sector). Now, however, George Osborne has rolled out a new generation of grants - equity loans and mortgage guarantees - under the Help to Buy banner. He insists they will only last for three years. But the Dutch precedent shows just how painful it is for politicians to take away housing subsidies when so much of a country's wealth is tied up in homes.
Of course, there is another, equally plausible explanation for high house prices in both England and the Netherlands - one that receives surprisingly little attention. A shortage of land and homes may be one necessary prop that was notably absent in Spain, Ireland and the US. But perhaps another necessary prop is low interest rates. Homes in both countries are at their most affordable in over a decade - but only because mortgage rates are so low.
Only when rates rise will we see whether high house prices in crowded countries such as England and the Netherlands really are here to stay. With inflation at just 2.2 per cent in October, that day of reckoning is not imminent.
