The first is affordability. Official figures show that the average house price in England and Wales is 7.8 times annual full-time average earnings. The ratio has continued to climb in recent years, even since the crisis.

Over the past 20 years, it has more than doubled in England — up 123% — and nearly done so in Wales — up 92%. Viewers in Scotland have their own figures, but it has also gone up substantially.

It is true, of course, that ultra-low interest rates affect the affordability calculation when it comes to monthly mortgage payments, making bigger mortgages more affordable, but high prices are still a mountain to climb when it comes to deposits.

Also, even though wage growth has picked up, at a little over 3%, it is not making much of a dent in the high house price/earnings ratio. Older readers will remember a time when you took out a mortgage you could barely afford, confident in the knowledge that salary rises would come to the rescue. Things are different now.

The other elephant is the Help to Buy scheme, beloved of my friends in the housebuilding industry, where it has been like manna from heaven. First-time buyers have been steered towards new housing by Help to Buy equity loans on up to 20% of a property’s value in most of the country and a hefty 40% in London.

This has had two effects. By tilting first-time buyers towards new-build homes, it has distorted patterns in the market for existing homes. Young people who used to buy older homes, including “doer-uppers”, now have a powerful incentive to buy new. Normal housing market chains are not having a chance to form.

The second effect has been to push up prices for new properties relative to existing homes. Again, this comes out clearly from the affordability data.