It wouldn't be the first time I've been accused of taking a short term or simplistic view of a situation, but I can't help but think there might be a silver lining to today's reports that the co-ownership scheme, which helps first-time buyers get on the property ladder by allowing them to buy part of their home and rent the rest, is to stop taking applications after committing to help 500 people next year, and thereby using up their budget.

Follow up:

Someone was telling me about an estate agent mentioning that a few sales had recently fallen through because of the aforementioned problems. It's not unrealistic to think that the sellers may therefore end up having to reduce their expectations for the price they'll get. If this is a pattern is repeated across the province it could help speed up the reduction in Ulster house prices. For developers, investors and speculators that's obviously bad news. For those of us thinking about buying a house in the next year or two it could be quite a good thing.

This got me thinking further, is all this investment in social housing really a good idea, or do schemes like co-ownership artificially inflate house-prices? Isn't what we really need an increase in the supply of available homes by building more and focus on measures to penalise landlords of the large number of empty properties here (which, to be fair, is something Margaret Ritchie is attempting to address)?