With official statistics showing UK house prices up almost 10% over the past year, the Governor of the Bank of England has described rising property prices as the greatest threat to economic recovery. But are fears of a property bubble justified?

In the first of a four part series, Michael Robinson travels across the UK to ask what's going on in the British housing market.

In the South West he finds estate agents with almost nothing to sell while buyers snap up houses within days of their coming onto the market. In the North-West where houses are far cheaper, first time buyers are struggling to compete with a new army of buy-to let landlords. And in Northern Ireland, where prices are now low enough for first time buyers to get a foot onto the ladder, he also meets some of the casualties of one of the biggest property crashes in UK history. Show less