Just stumbled across this: apparently house prices in Northern Ireland have fallen by 10% recently and there are thought to be nearly 50,000 Ulster dwellings lying empty.

Plans are now being made to charge rates on empty dwellings (long overdue if you ask me) which will hopefully have a significant impact on the number of developers holding on to empty properties in the hope they increase in value, at the same time artificially limiting supply and inflating prices.

It does make you wonder if all that headline-grabbing extra money for "social housing" wasn't a bit premature, but as someone who's hopefully going to be buying in the next couple of years I'll not complain too much. What'll have more of an impact, I wonder: 5,000 'affordable' (state-subsidised) homes or the owners of 50,000 properties facing the threat of rates?