House prices have been booming - but where are you on the housing ladder?

Britain is obsessed with house prices. Over the years, Panorama has charted that obsession.

With the help of previous Panorama contributors who have taken us into their homes, this programme reviews the rise and rise of the housing market and asks: who's sitting on a fortune - and who could be about to lose one?

prices over the last five years have probably doubled Richard a Brassard, Battersea estate agent

At the top of the ladder are those who own in places like London's Battersea.

Local estate agent, Richard a Brassard (who first appeared on Panorama 16 years ago) tells us that "prices over the last five years have probably doubled".

On the bottom rung are desperate first-time buyers.

'Out of control'

Norwich prices are going up by �60 a day.

One young couple in booming Norwich tells the programme they "would work 24 hours a day if that would help get our first home".

Tracey Hill and Andrew Reeve look for a house in Norwich for under �90,000

In the last six months, with a maximum budget of �80,000, they have not found anything worth looking at for less than �100,000. The market in Norwich, they say, "is out of control".

One Norwich estate agent tells Panorama that some clients are "putting in offers on properties without even viewing them".

In the south east especially, the housing boom is said to be damaging businesses and vital services. They cannot get staff because of the lack of so-called affordable housing.

In the north, prices are also rising in desirable areas, with parts of Leeds and York experiencing some of the highest increases.

Going for a song

In other parts you can hardly give houses away.

In parts of Salford the housing market is stagnant.

Britain's average house price might be more than �100,000 but in some northern areas you can pick up a terraced house for as little as �5,000.

Incredibly, at a time of national housing shortage, there are plans in some parts of Manchester and Salford to move people out of their homes so that their streets can be knocked down. No-one wants to live there.

Crisis

The housing bubble has been growing exponentially.

And it may end up bursting before the jargon of "affordable housing" becomes a reality for some key workers.

Suggestions to build on green-field sites put locals up in arms, but the House Builders Federation tells Panorama that the government is going to have to direct local authorities to release green-field sites.

Otherwise, "the housing crisis, and we do have a crisis on our hands, is going to get worse.

"Over the next five to ten years we will see housing become the crisis that we now have with the Health Service and with the railways, unless the government is prepared to do something to change it".

Meanwhile, the cost of borrowing is at its lowest for decades and there are more households than houses.

Can we go on with a property boom and a housing crisis, or is the bubble about to burst?

Production Team:
Reporter: David Lomax
Producer: Rabinder Minhas
Assistant Producers: Kate Harrison, Calum Walker, Khevyn Raj Limbajee
Editor: Mike Robinson