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The Wiki Man

The engagement-ring theory of property bubbles

We buy houses like we buy diamonds. That’s why they’re so stupidly expensive

29 March 2014

9:00 AM

29 March 2014

9:00 AM

Google ‘the bread market’ and you get 135,000 hits, mostly from specialist food industry websites. Google ‘the property market’, however, and you get over 180 million. ‘The financial markets’ nets you 282 million.

Seen like this, it’s unsurprising that capitalism has a reputational problem. The likelihood that the word ‘market’ is attached to any area of commercial activity is in direct proportion to the degree to which that category is seriously messed up.

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Rory Sutherland is vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK.

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