A shortfall of 1 million homes in England could send house prices rocketing when the recovery comes, David Pretty, chairman of the New Homes Marketing Board, has warned. Pretty explained that once mortgage finance finally became widely available, the mortgage market would struggle to cope with the pent-up demand, potentially pushing prices back to pre-credit crunch levels: “There is a very real possibility that property prices, which have fallen 15% or more, could rise back to 2007 levels within five years. These sort of pressures invariably happen to any market when demand far outstrips supply.” Pretty added that over the past decade, industry had only been building around 160,000 homes a year: “By 2010, pent-up demand for houses to buy, to rent and for social housing could be well over 1 million, and that is dangerously high.” <br>