Housing market: 'It's nice that Sheffield is popular, but this is housing madness' - editor

Every day I hear stories of people who are being forced to pay over the odds just to put a roof over their heads or say they don’t stand a chance of even getting to view the homes they are interested in. As soon as a new place comes on the market, it is sold.

One friend had 50 people booking to view her house within hours. She has a lovely house but it is nothing extraordinary, just a well cared for building in a nice neighbourhood.

This isn’t restricted to the posh ends of town, although clearly you still pay a premium for some areas.

The price hike and enormous demand is impacting more places.

There are many reasons. I know several people who grew up here, alongside me, and left to follow the golden money trail to the capital.

What this pandemic has done is show that these folk can keep their over inflated salaries and, when working from home, still be based back here ... the best city in the world. Why wouldn’t they?

So they hit the property market with far deeper pockets and throw out the normal rulebook.

There is gazumping galore. I know of one person who was so determined to get a particular house, they immediately offered £70,000 more than the asking price. How can average folk compete with that? This might make me sound old but when my eldest daughter was born, I could have got two lovely houses in the area where I grew up for less than that.

Don’t get me started on what my mum paid for the house where I was born. My children nearly choked on their dinner when she told them recently.

I am glad that Sheffield is where so many people want to be and I want this to be a popular, competitive city. We all do.

But recently I have been left shaking my head at what seems not only slightly crazy but also hugely unfair.

It plays into the hands of those who are better off and it means many will never escape the trap of only ever being able to pay their landlord’s mortgage rather than having one of their own.

Is that sustainable? Well, no matter what they say, I can’t see a crash coming any time soon. Can you?