The Guardian‘s Katie Allen reports that regions of Britain vulnerable to public sector job cuts could soon see a house price crash. For example, in Aberystwyth in Wales and Morpeth in England, property prices are currently stagnating if not falling.

House price falls have been forecast throughout the British Isles, so one has to question the relevance of the data presented by Hometrack and reported in the Grauniad. But still they are interesting, and particularly so to me, given that for years I lived in or around Aberystwyth, and would quite likely return to the Ceredigion region if I could afford to do so, even without a job at the university. After all, Aberystwyth lies just 10 kilometres south of Borth, the cultural capital of mid-Wales, I felt more at home in Aber’ than in most places in which I’ve resided during my 46 years, and I speak the language.

The view of Bae Ceredigion above is similar to that from my apartment on the hillside next to the funicular railway running between Aber’s world-famous promenade to the top of Y Graig Glais.

Having fallen off the so-called ‘property ladder’ following my divorce in Denmark back in 2002, and being reliant for the moment on a wildly fluctuating income as a freelance writer, editor, consultant and dogsbody, I cannot risk buying a house anywhere in Britain. It would seem that a majority of middle class professionals who do not currently own their home are in a similar situation, with no chance of buying a house unless they can stump up at least fifty grand in deposit, and have an annual income way above the UK average.

This leaves me in a bit of a moral quandary. Do I accept my fate as a second-class citizen in what is still largely a property-owning, petite-bourgeois society, or do I bank on the imminent misfortune of others in a fucked-up, Con-Lib hellhole, and hope for a house price crash on the back of mass public sector redundancies, and further job losses in a grossly mismanaged private sector?

Given the I’m all right Jack attitude of many property-owning young professionals, and the swelling ranks of middle-aged baby boomers whose final salary pensions remain assured, I’m afraid that my sympathies do not stretch very far.