Hello, you beautiful podcast listeners. Thank you for joining us. You are listening to

Rob and Rob. The show where you give us quite frankly delightful questions and we do

our very best to answer them and provide some value. This format has been working well.

We've done hundreds of them now and let's make sure that format continues and how can

we all make sure that happens? Well, by you continuing to give us great questions. So let's

remind you on how you can do that. Yeah, you've got your phone with you right now. So just

call 013 808 0035 013 808 0035. Or if you prefer, you can go to property hub.net slash

ask. Either way, leave us a voicemail. And after some amount of time passes, your question

will receive an answer on air, just like phrases is about to right now.

Hi, Rob and Rob. It's Fraser here. Just a question on property price predictions. I read

an article in the FTE saying that population is set to decline two decades earlier now in the UK

in 2025. Bearing this in mind, do you think that's going to have a negative effect on property

prices in the future? If we have a falling population and excess supply, it'd be great to get

your thoughts. Thank you. Thank you for the question, Fraser. It's a really interesting one.

And I've not seen the actual article that you're referring to. So I don't know what the

population predictions were or what they are now, but I do have some general thoughts.

The first is that population predictions are always wrong. If you look back at previous estimates

of household formation over time, always way out. So probably not worth worrying about too much

for that reason. Also, I'm making the assumption that the decline is not going to be a dramatic one.

So if that's the case, I'd say that there's a very slim chance that it would have a negative

effect on property prices. Why is that? Because if you take the official line on how many

households are being formed and how many property are being built, we're running short on house

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