A second area of concern has been the large and persistent increase in the price of housing over the last decade. New house prices have increased by 183 per cent between 1995 and 2003, an average increase of nearly 14 per cent a year, while existing house prices have increased more rapidly still.
This has been accompanied by continued strong increases in residential mortgage lending in the 20 to  4  BIS Review 25/2004  25 per cent range for a number of years.