Until recently, mortgage holders across advanced economies seemed safe in the knowledge that interest rates would stay put for some time. For the entirety of some of their lives as homeowners, there has barely been a hint of problematic inflation, let alone a suggestion that central banks would raise rates quickly to stop it. The worry was not unmanageable repayments, or falling prices, but finding enough money for a deposit to keep up with a market that showed no signs of slowing.

Many now find themselves revising these expectations. The Bank for International Settlements — the so-called central bankers’ central bank — has warned that rising interest rates could make existing debt burdens difficult to cope with and cause house prices to fall. Some have wondered whether housing debt represents the next “Minsky moment”: a term used to denote the point at which debt-fuelled asset bubbles unwind to cause economic collapse.

Much ink has been spilled in an effort to explain the long housing boom in advanced economies. The availability of cheap money with which to buy property has undoubtedly been a significant factor. Rates have been kept low in an effort to boost wages and growth. The side effect of these measures has been turbocharged demand for housing which ran head-on into supply constraints in many big cities.