Lucian Cook talks frankly about where the growth is happening, what is likely to drive the next stage of the housing market recovery and the impact of Help to Buy.

Also in this Residential Property Focus issue:

• What we saw in 2013 was quite different in nature to the short lived bounces in 2009 and 2010, in that it has been accompanied by a more meaningful improvement in transaction levels and mortgage lending.
• Much of the debate on the UK’s housing crisis has focused on the lack of new homes. Little is said about how we use existing homes.
• Across all the prime regional markets, prime urban properties are now on average just -3.1% below their 2007 peak compared to their neighbouring village and rural locations, which are lagging behind at -12.5% below.
• Housebuilding is set to increase to 167,000 new homes a year by 2018, supported by a steep rise in output from the public sector.
  But it is still short of the 240,000 new homes a year we need to meet household projections.

Read our Residential Property Focus Q1 2014