Leading North Yorkshire developer S Harrison has challenged the doom-mongers who are predicting a housing market slump as its new homes sales continue to boom.

Martyn Harrison who heads the successful Malton firm, says agents who predict house price falls risk talking the market down and making their own predictions come true.

"It is true that the recent price increases are probably unsustainable and that new house price rises will slow. It may also be true that agents have talked up secondhand home values too high in an effort to win business, and we may see values there fall.

"But the fact is that there is still a new homes shortage in many areas in the UK, and the market for well built, well priced homes, in the right places, will remain strong for the foreseeable future."

His prediction is borne out by Harrison's own experiences. The "all sold" signs went up quickly at the prestigious Whitehall Landing marina development in Whitby. More significantly, two new Harrison developments in Newcastle and Sheffield have seen unprecedented interest from buyers, even before a brick has been laid.

In the Crookes area of Sheffield, all 54 units - flats and houses - were sold off plan within days of the site being launched. At a new urban regeneration programme on Tyneside, almost all of the 107 apartments for sale are under contract despite the fact that Harrison's has not yet started work on site and it will be 2006 before the scheme is completed.

Mr Harrison predicts a mini surge in demand for properties again in 2006, when the government allows pension funds to invest in residential property.

"We could see an infusion of up to £11 billion into the new homes market as private pensions, wary of the stock market, seek to put their funds into bricks and mortar. If this creates a new demand in the buy-to-let market, it will have a knock on effect across the whole housing sector."

The firm plans to build 193 new homes at Birch Park in York later this year, and has a number of other schemes in the pipeline across Yorkshire.

The recently announced £80 million contract to redevelop a city centre site in Lichfield includes an element of private housing alongside retail, office and leisure facilities.

Updated: 09:47 Friday, March 18, 2005