The vast majority of economists expect house price inflation to slow over the next three years to allow wages to catch up, a poll shows.
Some six out of seven of the 225 economists polled in recent weeks by the BBC expect a slowdown in house prices between now and the middle of 2007.
Forty-two per cent expect house price levels in mid-2007 to actually be lower than they are now, leaving a small majority who expect no price drop.
Eighteen per cent think values will have dropped by more than 10 per cent by the middle of 2007, the BBC said.
House price inflation - an important factor in the Bank of England's monetary policy considerations - is running at around 20 per cent, according to mortgage lenders' surveys, far outstripping wage inflation which has only recently started to push up above 5 per cent .
The BoE's Monetary Policy Committee noted in the minutes of its last meeting two weeks ago that house price inflation was likely to be even stronger in the second quarter of 2004 than it had expected just last month.
While there were some early signs of easing, these "were very tentative, and it was clear that any sign of slowdown in house price inflation would be later and from a higher rate than the Committee had previously envisaged," the minutes said.
Economists say the differential between house price and wages growth is unsustainable and some commentators have argued that the differential means a house price crash is inevitable, with potentially damaging effects for the broader economy.