“Reading the Runes”

So when will the next property boom occur? Not in 2009 — but might the green shoots of recovery be seen in early 2010, with full flowering witnessed a year later, just before the London Olympics?

I recall producing a specialist, one-off property-focused magazine in 1992 called Recovery. Mooted in 1991-2, it was published two years too soon! Truly, the 1990-1995 property recessions longevity was daunting, and debilitating. However, this "scribbler" had the pleasure of sparring with broadcaster Mary Nightingale in 1994 when she claimed that good times would only return when house prices recovered: I suggested that the Clinton administration at the time was the first government in the world to announce a fall in unemployment, and that job creation presaged a far wider recovery than that of house prices.

Students of recession might like to turn to The Property Boom, written by former Sunday Times journalist Oliver Marriott in 1967, revised by him in 1989 (first published by Hamish Hamilton, London). Its line up of entrepreneurs includes Harry Hyams, who developed Tottenham Court Road's Centre Point; a shrewd former estate agent, he purchased — in the last week of October 1954 — offices in Mayfair's Grafton Street, one week before government restrictions on development were lifted: the date marks the start of the post-war boom.

Also included is Charles Clore, the developer who followed a largely anti-herd "contrarian" approach, buying when others turned away. Like the former Navy rating Donald Gosling — who bought bomb sites and added them to his fledgling NCP car park portfolio — Clore claims he foresaw the boom. The surge for London offices was impressive: offices accounted for 10% of London buildings in 1945, and a whopping 72% in 1966.

True, there had been a collapse, or pause, in the property market in 1958 — but with affluence building a head of steam during the Beatles/Kings Road/World Cup 1966 era, London was set fair for growth until the secondary banking/oil price spikes of 1973 - made worse by Harold Wilson's very left-wing government, and the subsequent Tory administration's inability to get coal to power stations — led to economic stagnation via inflation, the introduction of pence in place of pennies (goodbye, shillings!) and the rise in quality and affordability of Japanese and German goods.

Marriott's book requires someone of the stature of Paul Finch or John Waples to re-write Property Boom; ideally, it should hit the streets just as British athletes take their place on 2012's starting blocks in east London.