pandarific - no it will happen soon. The boom created by Central Banks has pumped up the London and South East housing market and economy to stratospheric levels but it only reaches as far north as Oxford and Cambridge.
The South East economy boom now is only based on huge amounts of financial market manipulation by Central Banks that printed a lot of money and gave it to banks ate effectively zero interest rates but that printing has stopped. That money never reached the economy north of Watford though.
The amount of bad loans still hidden inside banks is enormous. There are so many empty shops in my town the banks are too frightened to foreclose on the mortgages and are keeping landlords on life support. These shops are empty bringing in no rent, the mortgages are not being paid. My friend who works in commercial property finance says in his experience outside London and South East shops and shopping centres are still going at 50% of previous value - if you can find a buyer stupid enough to buy them. All the mortgages on these shops are far bigger than the property is worth. The banks are petrified it will get worse and terrified of writing of the losses they already have.
There are of course properties without mortgages on them. I went to look at a commercial property a few months back to rent. Empty for 3 years. Owned by a large pension fund. It has halved in value and brought in no rent all that time. People's pensions are slowly being eaten away as well.
The Govt and Central Banks connived to hide the real scale of the Financial Crisis. Problem is they just cant keep it going for long enough. I really pity young people in fairly ordinary jobs that bought houses recently in London and South East. They will end up in negative equity and probably lose their jobs as well.
I am not some loony conspiracy theorist. I work in this area. It really is dire out there in the real economy North of Watford and the apparent 'boom' in London and South East will stop once the Central Banks stop printing money.