"It does indirectly, i.e. by preventing supply gluts like we have seen in other countries when a property bubble bursts. e.g. Spain had lots of unaffordable housing in the bubble and now it has lots of affordable housing. This can never happen in the UK because the auto correcting features of a market are turned off by restrictive planning. The biggest ever global property bubble could only produce a few empty city centre flats in the UK in 2009 and 2010, not what you would expect in a real market." - Adrian