A lot of people seem to think the house price-earnings ratio is 11 times salary, as Business Week claimed, rather than a still-high 6.5 - 7 times. Here, as reminder, is the calculation.

Here's a link to the median earnings figures. As you'll see, the median in 2006 was £447 a week, £23,244 a year. The median house price in England & Wales in 2006 was £166,000, according to Land Registry data. That gives a house price-earnings ratio of 7.1. To add a further complication house prices have been conventionally measured in relation to male earnings, £487 a week, £25,324 a year, which brings us down to 6.5.

If you're still with me, you'll have noticed that most house price measures are for the average, or mean. Let's take that at £200,000 - it's lower on some measures than others. So what are mean earnings? This release tells us (see p9) that they are £537.30 overall, £27,940, or £591.60, £30,763 for men only. That gives price-earnings ratios of 7.2 and 6.5 respectively; not much different.