More housing bubble reports from the UK. "House prices jumped 1.1 percent in March, taking the annual increase to its highest in almost a year. Nationwide said house prices were unlikely to keep growing at such a strong rate, as rising fuel bills and tax increases weighed on incomes and dampened demand."

"'Affordability continues to be squeezed as house prices rise further,' Nationwide said in a statement. Official data on Wednesday suggested the housing market may cool in the coming months; approvals for home purchases, a leading indicator of house prices six months out, fell in February for the first time in over a year, while mortgage lending rose by much less than expected."

"'Even in a market with historically low interest rates..there is a limit to the proportion of income that borrowers will feel comfortable spending on their housing,' Nationwide said."

"Ireland's rapid pace of house price growth has become a problem, the head of the country's biggest mortgage lender said. 'There's a general acceptance now that house price growth is a problem,' Denis Casey, CEO of a banking division told Reuters."

"The Fitch Ratings Agency also said on Thursday that it expected house price growth to decelerate, pointing out that a continuing increase in supply would eventually outpace demand. Currently about 80,000 housing units a year are being built in Ireland, equal to 20 units per 1,000 inhabitants. That compares with an average of about five units per 1,000 in other European countries. Inward migration stands at about 30,000 people a year."

"Nevertheless, having spoken with developers, permanent Casey said he expected builders to complete even more houses this year than the record 80,957 achieved in 2005: 'I think we will top that this year.'"

"According to Fitch's Atanasios Mitropoulos, the Irish market is vulnerable to interest rate gains because the majority of people have variable or short-term fixed rate mortgage products. 'Vulnerability is high given the fact that interest rates are expected to increase,' he said."

And from the Scotsman. "Buildings expert Peter Wilson casts a critical eye over the scene laid out before him, a series of high-rise buildings on what has been trumpeted as a world-class waterfront. Wilson and others are warning promises of a waterfront to rival the best in the world may well instead deliver the ghetto of the future."

"'I get depressed by the quality of so much of what has been built,' sighs the director of Napier University's School of the Built Environment with a shake of his head. 'Some looks as if it's been made out of chewing gum and string. There are some good buildings around, but there are also many that are diabolically poor.'"

"This is not quite what we had been led to expect from the regeneration of a massive industrial landscape, optimistically dubbed the Forth Riviera and claimed to be the beginnings of a waterfront to rival the best in the world."

"Wilson sighs again. 'The developers talk a big show but they don't understand what they are doing here. This area is being driven by property speculation, there just doesn't seem to have been a coherent analysis of what is the biggest remaining site in Edinburgh.'"

"High-rise flats dominating the waterfront have been built first by developers keen to meet the demand for two-bedroom homes, he adds. However, there are now fears that the sheer number of properties, and prices starting at around £140,000 for a one-bedroom flat, may have saturated the market. 'The developers may have overstretched themselves,' Councillor Trevor Davies adds. 'Some of the buildings are far too big.'"

"'There's lots of rhetoric comparison with Copenhagen and Barcelona, but no-one from abroad is making those comparisons, it's only Waterfront Edinburgh who are saying that. What is happening to the waterfront is light years from Copenhagen, Hamburg and Barcelona,' Wilson said."

"Newhaven councillor Steve Cardownie warns failing to get it right at the waterfront will haunt us all for years to come. 'What we do here has to be better than good because it has to last for generations. The responsibility to make the right decisions here is huge, future generations won't forgive us if we make the wrong choices.'"