Dear Listener,

Just when we thought nothing much was going to happen, Nationwide told us on Friday that house prices had – wait for it – FALLEN – in November. Headline writers sharpened their gloom pencils, threw in more figures about the number of mortgages plummeting and told us the house price bubble had finally burst. All that wealth homeowners thought they had would soon drain away.

But will it? We talk to an economist who thinks it might. A financial planner who says yes, and he’s been saying so for a while. And a mortgage broker who is much more upbeat about the market.

We’ll also be looking at more gloom from Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor who told MPs that the next few months would be “rather uncomfortable” which is bank talk for “I don’t know what’s going to happen but hold on to your hats (you might not be able to afford a new one for a while).”

Away from high finance we expose the details of the five million low income people who will end up worse off after the basic rate of income tax is cut next April. Yes: tax is cut but they pay more.

We report on the cost to charities, due to the same cut in the basic rate of income tax. They’ll lose £70 million a year.

And we explore the change introduced by the banks which means that when you pay in a cheque you can be absolutely certain that the money is yours after six days. But what does “six days” actually mean? (hint: you’ll see rather more than six sunrises).

We hope this week that we can squeeze all that in. If we can’t we’ll put the extra story on the web. Remember you can download Money Box and Money Box Live as a podcast so you can listen to the programmes on your MP3 player anytime, anywhere. You can even sign up for a weekly download to make sure you never miss an episode.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/moneybox/

Best wishes

Paul Lewis

PS Don’t forget the live preview of Money Box on BBC1 Breakfast between 8.45 and 9 Saturday morning.

e-mail Paul Lewis