Ok, we've heard of inflation but this is ridiculous. A family that bought their home for 50p seven years ago have recently sold their property for £145,000.

The house, in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne was bought by Salik Uddin in 1999, for the price of a can of Coke, as part of a government rejuvenation scheme to attract workers and families to the crime-plagued North Bidwell area. And clearly it has worked. Houses in the estate have increased in value by 290,000 %, making Cornwall's ludicrous housing prices rise over the last few years pale in comparison. Still, if the Uddin family wanted to move to Cornwall with their new found property wealth they'd still be pretty hard-pushed to find a family home for £145,000 - the average cost of a semi in the Southwest comes it at around the £180,000 mark these days.

OK, OK we're not going to start banging on about the average wage vs cost of housing ratio down our way, but we ask you...

Interested in the housing crisis? Check out Stranger's feature on alternative housing solutions from issue 09 here.