Quick take UK house prices have barely kept pace with inflation, while equities have delivered stronger real returns, challenging the old faith in bricks and mortar. Prime London and second-home hotspots are no longer behaving like safe havens, with tax changes, weaker demand, and higher ownership costs cooling once-prized markets. The forces that powered the last property boom: falling mortgage rates, rising real wages, and benign policy, now look more like relics than repeatable advantages.