All this talk of a housing market recovery is not only stupid, it's dangerous, says Harvey Jones. Haven't we learned from our mistakes?
I've just been talking to a leading London estate agent and now I'm suffering from painful flashbacks.
Estate agents are renowned for their headache-inducing qualities, but in recent months they have been the ones in pain, as the property market and their bonus structures crashed around their ears.
Please, no tears, no flowers.
As this estate agent talked (and talked), I realised it won't be long before the entire profession is back on its feet and making our lives miserable again. In parts of the country, it is already starting.
Because he hadn't absorbed any of the lessons of the past 18 months, and seemed absolutely determined to drag us straight back into the future as quickly as he possibly could.
Bricks are back.
The estate agent was enthusiastically telling me how now is a great time to buy property. Sorry, invest in property. He has been rushing around telling investor meetings that with savings rates at rock bottom lows, bricks and mortar is the way to go.
With prices 20% down on their July 2007 peak, and mortgage rates at record lows, he pointed out that buying a property is now more affordable than for several years (provided you can muster a 25% deposit).
Better still, buyers who sign up to a long-term fix can benefit from current low base rates for five, 10 or even 15 years.
He also noted that the UK faces a chronic long-term shortage of property supply, thanks to an expanding population, tight planning regulations, family breakdown and the mothballing of new-build housing projects.
Not that he was suggesting a shortage of liveable properties was a good thing, merely an "opportunity".
All this would conspire to push up prices faster than people expect, he said. At which point my head started to throb.
Joys of the crunch.
The credit crunch may have been painful, but at least there have been some consolations.
It did promise to put an end to manically-inflated house price rises, and the crazy borrowing necessary to fund them.
It also gave potential first-time buyers the slither of a hope that one day they might be able to afford a place of their own, and still have money left over to buy their dinner.
It stopped the rank unfairness of people who already had equity in their homes using it to buy a second, third or fourth property, and renting it to the same young people they had muscled off the property ladder.
And best of all, it shrank the opportunity for property professionals to turn the residential housing market into a money-spinning playground for them and a casino for the rest of us.
Another load of bull.
Before I spoke to the estate agent, I had real hopes that we were learning the right lessons from the collapse, and would treat property with a little more respect in future.
The sad, naïve, purblind fool that I am.
Because the housing market bulls are out there, waiting for the first signs of life so they can start the whole boom-bust cycle rolling again.
And it doesn't take much to get them roaring. A relatively modest price fall of 0.3% in April, according to Hometrack figures, was enough. As was a small rise in the number of potential buyers registering at estate agents.
They're they go, rampaging around the UK and beyond to sucker the next wave of investors into pricing our debt-strapped younger generation out of the housing market.
Swallow that!
I understand that estate agents have a role to play, and a valuable one. They have to encourage buyers not to abandon the market altogether, plus they have a duty to secure the best price they can for their vendors.
And maybe we do need a little positive attitude amid all the current doom and gloom.
But with another million people likely to lose their jobs this year, and many subsequently losing their houses, I think my contact was being a little pre-emptive in talking up the market. A springtime price fall of just 0.3% does not make a summer.
And encouraging those who have hung onto their jobs and can secure rock bottom mortgage rates to fill their boots will only widen the already huge gap between the property haves and have-nots.
Back in black.
We have already seen a desperately rearguard action among property professionals to cling onto the old ways, in particular 100% mortgages. Now the "property as an investment" brigade is auditioning its marching band.
My fear is that they will prove easy winners in the race for mortgage finance, pushing up prices before most first-time buyers have come close to assembling a 25% deposit.
And that could reset the same property timebomb that was noisily ticking before the crash.
I don't want to go back to the future. I've been there, and I've seen where it ends up.