Wouldn't nationalising the estate agency business kill house price inflation?

[TheOneWiththeNicestSmile]

& wouldn't that be a good thing?

I've never ever heard it mooted as a solution to the London house prices problem, & it might be too late now, but it's always seemed to me that if estate agents didn't get commission there'd be no point in them inflating prices as they'd be stung just as much as the rest of us

no.

people pay what they are prepared to pay. Compare asking prices with sold prices, especially outside London.

Who said they wanted to kill HPI? Politicians such as Blair made tens of millions out of it.

They don't give a shit.

I don't think house prices go up because of estate agents inflating the asking price, they go up for lots of reasons in the same way as other sorts of inflation.

I don't see how that would work at all. Estate agents don't have that much sway over national and local economies, supply and demand flows, bank of England policies, foreign investment in properties etc etc

No. Some of the same estate agents operate here and in Durham. Houses in parts of Durham go for 3-4 times more than they would here. It's not just the house that people are paying for.