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If you regard that as a floor and take as a reasonable ceiling a ratio of perhaps 3.5 to 1, not the 5 to 1 peak of 1988, then there is still some way for house prices to rise before warning bells should ring.So let's accept the present conventional wisdom that house prices will be reasonably strong over the next couple of years and maybe go a little further and say that prices will stay in that ratio range of 3-3.5 to 1 for the next seven years. The chart on the left shows how this ratio, at just over 3 to 1, is actually a little below the levels of the early 1980s. To say that is not to imply that seven fat years will follow, for there are many reasons the swings in house prices are likely to be more muted in future. But for anyone who studies trade cycles, the fact that there has been a clear cycle of that sort of duration does carry some confidence that the next few years will see a positive trend.Perhaps the best reason for confidence is the present affordability of house prices - their level relative to earnings. It is sufficiently real for the Prime Minister, John Major, to feel able to cite rising house prices as one of the reasons dissident Conservatives might return to the fold - that is one of the points in his new mass mailing to voters. If one takes the end of 1988 as the starting point of the slump and reckon that the end of last year marks the end of it, we have just lived through a biblical seven lean years in house prices.

We are getting reports from both Halifax and Nationwide of prices having risen by more than 5 per cent in the past year and forecasts that over the next year they will rise by double that. The number of people with negative equity is falling, turnover in housing (though still low by historical standards) is rising, and purchases of goods associated with home-buying, such as carpets, are soaring. All the previous incipient recoveries petered out; now it is clearly for real. The purchaser is a consortium of USI Far East Corporation and Union Petrochemical Corporation.. If one had to choose a moment when the great housing slump of the early 1990s ended, now must be as good as any. The business has been affected by poor demand and weak pricing, causing a drag on profits from the Far East.Net assets involved in the sale amount to around $385m, with a further $35m being provided for contingent contractual liabilities BTR will therefore take a $35m loss on disposal. The British group will receive $120m on completion, with further payments of $90m in each of the two succeeding years.

Mark Cusack at UBS described the sale as "another chink of light". In itself this was not a massive deal, he said, but added: "There is overwhelming relief in the stock market that they are out and it is another underperforming business which has gone - and very cyclical, too."Taiwan Polymer makes and sells bulk petrochemicals in Taiwan and the US Its styrene product is a constituent part of polystyrene. The disposal comes hot on the heels of last week's sale of the Tilcon quarrying and aggregates operations in the US for $329m and brings to $900m the amount raised by the disposals programme instituted by chief executive Ian Strachan, who has undertaken an overhaul of the sprawling conglomerate since taking over in January. News of the latest sale sent BTR's shares 3.5p higher to 265.5p, although the deal will not affect the half-year figures due on Thursday, when BTR is expected to cut its dividend.Analysts generally welcomed the deal, which they said met expectations in terms of price, even if the timing was a little disappointing. BTR, the industrial conglomerate, has concluded a $300m (pounds 191m) deal for the sale of its 51 per cent stake in Taiwan Polymer, its poorly performing Far Eastern plastics business. Bob Malpas replaces Sir Alastair as chairmanSir Alastair won't be drawn on a new job after his hols. Sources stress he is only 58, and he has "one more big industrial job in him".x. So Bass is safe for the moment.Sir Alastair Morton was in an end-of-term mood yesterday as he presented his last press presentation for Eurotunnel, nine-and-a-half years after becoming co-chairman of the project.Sir Alastair will retire at the end of October and then go on a long holiday - "at least six months, to Costa Rica or the South Pacific," he says.

It baffles me."Mr Corbett fears that p/es force chains to expand simply to increase earnings, whereas he wants to limit the Tup chain to around 8 at most "I'm not about to create an empire," he says. He may seek to raise capital next spring through an AIM listing or private shareholders, but he remains bemused by the ways of the City."People see pubs as a good wheeze and then float them on a p/e of 198 million. I know that if a pub makes a profit of pounds 150,000 then it's worth roughly four to five times that A lot of pub chains trade on a p/e of 30. Before a pint is pulled, he has to deal with rent of pounds 116,000 a year, rates of pounds 37,000 and an additional management fee.Despite the expenses, Mr Corbett remains a sole trader. "It's rather like giving birth, perhaps not as messy."He has bought a bar in Gresham Street formerly known as Shorts and is ploughing pounds 250,000 of his own money into sprucing it up for a November opening.Like many institutions, Mr Corbett finds City rents "mind blowing". He concludes that Channel 5 is a programme service "which we can well do without". Perhaps they could turn this row into a television series.Hugh "Sooty" Corbett, the man who built and then sold the Slug & Lettuce and Harvey Floorbanger's pub chains, is about to open a boozer just down the road from the Bank of England, called the City Tup.Mr Corbett says he always gets apprehensive before he opens a new pub.

Channel 5 drafted a reply, refusing to sign his form and seeking to reassure him of the high quality of its retuners. A copy of the draft fell into my hands and was quoted in last week's column. Now Mr Thomas writes to us, saying that he has not received Channel 5's letter, but adding: "It does seem extraordinary to me that they are not prepared to sign a document drawn up by a respected firm of lawyers [Goodman Derrick] to protect my reasonable interests."That refusal makes me all the more concerned for the security of my home and family."Having nothing of material value in the house, I have no great fear of Greg Dyke's 'burglars', but I do value dearly my wife and young son and have no wish to expose them to the risk of contact with ..."And here we have to leave Mr Thomas's letter, dear reader, as he casts aspersions that a family newspaper such as this could not possibly repeat. He attached a form for Channel 5 to sign, indemnifying him against any possible damage. That naughty Ward Thomas, chairman of Yorkshire-Tyne Tees, is at it again. The story so far: Mr Thomas wrote to nascent rival Channel 5 insisting that when their retuners turned up to his house, that they should do the job in his drive as they constituted a security risk. Profits of pounds 45m this year suggests the shares, on a forward p/e of 21, are up with events..