Ka.boom, you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.
The relation average annual income to average house price is 3 to 3.5 in the rest of the developed world. This is consistent across all sort of different cultures, whether they are ownership focussed or not.
7.5 times annual income as we have it here at the moment, is clearly not sustainable for a number of reasons including affordability for first home buyers (basically if this continues, Joe Average would only be able to buy his first house at 40), long term growth (in a couple of decades with these growth rates, the average owner would not be able to pay off his mortgage during his working life), interest and a few other reasons.
Your comment re. the Spanish is total BS, I have lived and worked in Spain, and they like ownership almost as much as the Anglo-Saxons. Incidentally, they are just suffering through a housing price crash at the moment because they had similarly unsustainable price hikes over the last five or so years!
Re. the UK, I've lived there too, believe it or not, and I've owned property in London, and unless you buy a very short leasehold (i.e. 50 years or shorter), the difference in price to freehold is negligible. Most purchases are actually long leaseholds (mine was 999 years) because it makes it easier to administer the development, or in case of London, whole blocks are in the freehold of the crown or other aristocracy. I got offered the freehold of my flat for less than 5% of the purchase price after a few years when the developer wanted to get rid of it..
So before you spout bullsh!t here next time, get your facts straight and read a bit, it's all here on the net, mate
