Clichés abound in the world of real estate. They come at you in a fast and furious manner whatever the gathering — at some conference or other, or just ambling down the Croisette; there is no respite. But it’s right about this time in the life of a property cycle that this cliché-ridden language begins to evolve ever so slightly, and alarmingly, into a world of justification and denial.

Over the past few months, how often have you heard phrases like, “this time it will be different”? The prime end of the market in Europe is booming, oldtimers are beginning to raise their eyebrows at the sorts of prices that are being achieved and at what’s coming next, and yet the phrase just keeps coming back, “this time it will be different”. The market is more sophisticated, it’s a more balanced environment, we’re in a new normal, in the midst of a paradigm shift, there is much less debt around, a greater diversity of capital and, in any case, we can all still remember