A new generation now realised that what goes up can come down. 1988’s falls took until 1998 in London property to fully recover.

Lessons learned in London over that period included the fact that even well off people didn’t want to live in rabbit hutches. Very occasionally these days you can still see glimpses, in unmolested properties from late 80s developments, of what unimaginative developers expected people to put up with. Just because a flat had a second bathroom it didn’t excuse an 8ft square bedroom, and one that was usually without cupboards.

The sluggish central London market started to come out of its torpor in the mid 90s and there was excitement in the air with new technology, to invest in and use. Mobile phones became the focus of many an agent – and as soon as you used one you wondered how the hell we functioned without them. They were very expensive, shiny, new and big, making them difficult to hide. Many a smart BMW was seen with smashed windows and an empty phone cradle. Frankly it was yet another must have for agents who competed for the smartest and the race appeared to have been won with a phone SO small you could barely see it being used. Smartphones were still ten years away.