Part of my job here at FAP Towers is to upload photos onto the FindaProperty.com area guide pages.

Most of the photos are as per the brief: they give you an idea of what it’s like to live in a particular area. So, house styles, local amenities, shops, pubs, green areas, transport links and waterfowl.

Wait, what? Waterfowl? Read on and I’ll explain…

Having looked through thousands of photos over the past two years it seems that our feathered friends are getting in on the area photo act.

Showing the same dogged (quacked?) persistence of a Z-list celebrity at a B-movie premiere the avian aquatic crowd are somehow catching the eye of our intrepid area snappers to ensure they appear in the photo galleries.

Overall it seems that swans play it cool with effortless elegance – yes I know I’m beautiful, you may take my picture.

Geese however display a certain bad boy aggression – take my picture or I’ll effin’ peck you, see if I don’t.

And the ducks? Well they just sit there looking funny. I’ve never met a duck that didn’t make me laugh.

So in honour of all their breast puffing and leg showing, here are the Jodie Marshes and Callum Bests of the bird kingdom, shamelessly strutting their stuff for FindaProperty.com.

Photos: Steve Roberts, Kate Woolhouse, Lucy Blake, Mike O’Flynn, Phil O’Connor

Two recent headlines, published within a day of one another.

•    House prices to ‘plunge a third by 2010′ – This is Money.

•    House prices ‘up by 25 per cent by 2013′ – The Guardian.

The first is based on a report from Roger Bootle of Capital Economics. The second is based on a report produced for the National Housing Federation by Oxford Economics.

Bootle has been predicting a house price crash for years and now, understandably, feels his moment has come (see his Ha!, I told you so piece in The Telegraph recently.)

I wasn’t wrong, is his line, I was just a bit early with my predictions … and the fact that the market boomed for longer than I thought will mean a bigger fall.

The National Housing Federation represents 1300 independent housing associations.

They think prices will pick up fairly quickly because rapid population growth and shortfalls in housing supply will keep the pressure on house prices (and force more people to turn to housing associations in search of an affordable solution).

Both, in other words, have their own line to push.

Which reminds me of a very old joke…

An interviewer asks a mathematician: “What does two plus two equal?”

“Four,” he replies. “Four, exactly?” asks the interviewer.

“Yes, four, exactly, and always,” says the incredulous mathematician.

The interviewer then asks an economist the same question.

The economist gets up, locks the door, pulls down the blinds, and whispers, with a nervy glance over his shoulder:

“What do you want it to equal?”

As a matter of interest, who do you think is closer to the truth? And if neither, what do you think will happen to house prices?

It ain’t the workin’ man’s blues, it ain’t the lovin’ blues … it’s the subprime mortgage crisis blues!

A catchy animated take on the US housing market from the Explanotions team on Current TV…

(If you can’t see the above video you may need the latest version of Flash Player. Click here to download it.)

Here are the top 20 areas that people searched for on FindaProperty.com during June.

I was browsing through our South West pages today in search of a wreck when I came across this three-sided curiosity.

It’s the entrance to a now defunct underground reservoir and was originally commissioned by the Duke of Bedfordshire (more here: Legendary Dartmoor).

Being a duke (ie: minted) he didn’t employ some local brickie to knock a few walls together. Gad no. He commissioned Edwin Lutyens, the uber architect of the Edwardian era.

Lutyens came up with this charming little fairytale structure using slate and Hurdwick stone. The simplicity of circle surrounding triangle gives it a strangely occult vibe – you wouldn’t be surprised to see Gandalf stepping out the front door.

It measures 40′x40′, is 11′ deep and is known locally (and unflatteringly) as The Pimple.

With a £10,000 price tag it’s hugely tempting, so much so that we’re half thinking of having a whip around here in the sumptuously appointed FAP Editorial Suite (that kind of money would barely cover our monthly biscuit delivery from Harrods).

But we have a problem.  What on earth would we do with it?

Suggestions please!

The Pimple is being sold by Ward & Chowen, Tavistock (Tel: 0845 437 5766).

Last summer – just as the Northern Rock storm broke – I was in the process of buying a flat in Brighton.

The deal dragged on and then eventually collapsed because the sellers were convinced that prices would just keep on rising – this despite my best efforts to explain that the market really was at its peak (never has the phrase “I’m a property journalist” fallen on such deaf ears!)

They refused to budge and then pulled out of the deal. With the market looking shaky, I decided to rent.

The question I’m mulling over at the moment is whether I should buy now or hold on a bit longer?

And I’m not alone. Yesterday a colleague wandered over to my desk. “Mike,” he said (with barely a trace of irony), “I’m told you’re the font of all housing knowledge: should I buy now?”

Yes, yes, that’s me folks, and speaking in my official capacity as TFOAHK (think long white beard, flowing robes, rather cool sandals, booming voice), let me say this unto you all:

Even when a plague – or a credit crunch – falleth upon the land and all seems dark and hopeless there will be opportunities out there. Although recent reports would have you believe the market has ground to a halt, people are still buying. And let’s be fair – they can’t all be mad.

Some quick-witted investors and first-time buyers are bagging bargains and some people trading up have discovered that what they lose in a price reduction on their place they gain in a price cut on their new home.

But buying now very much depends on your personal circumstances (financial and otherwise), your local market, and your attitude to risk.

In Brighton asking prices don’t seem to have fallen much – by just under ten per cent in the area I was previously considering. And when I did a few calculations the other day I discovered that rate rises have pretty much negated those falls.

My rent is currently 30 per cent less that what my mortgage payments would be, saving rates are high and prices look like they could slide further in the months ahead, so I’m thinking I’ll sit tight – at least for the moment.

In the meantime, I’ll be keeping a close eye on things – though I’m conscious that there are an awful lot of people out there doing the same thing: our stats man tells me visitors to FindaProperty.com have held very firm over the past six months (at around 2.4m) and are up 16 per cent year-on-year (see table below).

That represents an awful lot of pent up demand and I reckon it will start to translate into sales as the market begins to bottom out. When will that be? Quite honestly, I have no idea (and neither does anyone else).

But I can see things picking up if prices fall for another five or six months and then interest rates/mortgage rates edge down: the combination of enticing prices and lower mortgage payments is bound to bring buyers back. And then it really will be a case of “On your marks…”

The Association of Residential Letting Agents has just published a new report on the Private Rented Sector.

Its author, Professor Michael Ball, argues that rents could rise by 10-15 per cent in 2008 and 2009.

Rents, he claims, will be especially strong in London and the South East where demand is highest, but will slide in northern cities which have an oversupply of new-build properties.

Far be it for me to cross swords with a fully paid up Professor of Urban and Property Economics, but did he, by any chance, take a look at the latest ARLA report on the buy-to-let market?

Here’s a direct quote:

Compared with three months ago, weighted average rents for houses are down by seven per cent as a result of decreases of 16 per cent in Prime Central London, five per cent for the Rest of the UK and one per cent for  the Rest of the South East.

Average rents for flats are also down overall, by nine per cent, as a result of decreases for all the broad geographical areas.

Ball makes the point that rents will rise because supply will be cut off by fewer landlords buying.  But RICS recently noted that supply was on the rise because lots of vendors unable to sell are letting the place out instead.

He also argues that landlords will be keen to make up for the impact of higher interest rates and inflation. But bigger bills hit tenants too, and there must, surely, be a limit to how far they can be pushed?

Is the good professor right? I’d like to hear from all you landlords, tenants and letting agents out there – what’s happening to rents in your area?

“Evan, EVAN, could I just finish answering the question if that’s ok….”

Housing Minister Caroline Flint was on a hiding to nothing this morning as she tried to avoid questions about the Government’s housing policy and the likelihood of actually building 3m new homes by 2020.

She was, however, given a bit of a mauling by Evan Davis (presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme), not least when he asked if house price falls were a Good Thing.

Full marks there for a devilishly clever question – though Flint, spotting the danger, knew she’d be damned if she said yes and damned if she said no.

So in time-honoured politico fashion she pretended she’d been asked a completely different question.

But what answer would you give? Are price falls a bad thing, and if not, what’s positive about the current situation?

You can hear the interview on the BBC (if you want to cut to the chase, she comes in at 4:18 mins):

I read recently that Stuart Hill had declared independence for the island of Forvik.

You may remember Stuart. He was dubbed ‘Captain Calamity’ by some, following his disastrous attempt to circumnavigate the UK in little more than a rowing boat with a windsurf sail attached. You think I’m joking? I’m not.

His latest venture is an attempt to draw attention to the fact that he believes his island (and the rest of the Shetland Islands) should be a Crown dependency in the same vein as the Isle of Man.

Good luck with that Stuart, and your scam scheme to sell off 8,000 parcels of land for £60 each (you do the maths).

However, it did get me thinking – wouldn’t it be great to start my own country? So off I went in search helpful pointers on how to set up a micronation.

Four hours later I sat back, bowled over at the wonderful lunacy of micronationals the world over.

For example: did you know that in the 1940s the Principality of Outer Baldonia (population: 70) once declared war on the USSR (population: 170million give or take) following a harsh criticism of the micronation in the state-run Literary Gazette?

Or that Leicester Hemingway, brother of Ernest, established New Atlantis on a raft in the Caribbean? Unfortunately the bell tolled for him – the raft was subsequently destroyed by a hurricane.

And I don’t know even where to begin to describe the colourful history of the Principality of Sealand, one of the more celebrated micronations. Guns, coups and kidnappings – and all on a gun platform not much bigger than a tennis court.

It all sounds like great fun though, so I’m gonna get me a country.

I’ll start by buying an island and declaring my independence:

Then, as King of my new nation I’ll obviously need a suitable castle. Transporting this imposing pile from Italy and rebuilding it shouldn’t pose too many problems:

Finally, I’ll need some kind of navy, to defend against invaders and the tax man. This looks just the job:

Right, I’m off. Please forward all further correspondence to one of my minions. I shall be too busy being King.

Queuing to buy milk for my breakfast the other morning I found myself scanning the headlines and spotted a number of stories bemoaning the plans for fortnightly rubbish collections (again).

Treading my way home between the piles of festering rubbish and black sacks torn to shreds by seagulls I started to wonder why my mouth-and-no-trousers council seem to be doing such a bad job of waste and recycling collections and found myself starting to agree with the likes of Doretta Cocks and her Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection www.weeklywaste.com…

If councils switch to fortnightly weekly collections surely we will all be wading through waste!  No? Well consider this.

Two years ago my old home town of Bristol collected waste once a week and recycling once a fortnight.

The council then decided that it would like Bristol to become the ‘green capital of the UK’ and one of its first moves was to reduce the frequency of waste collections.

Madness, I hear you say.  Surely that means rotting food hanging round for two weeks?  Flies, rats and even more seagulls?

But here’s the clever part: They increased the frequency of the recycling collections to once every week.

They also increased the range of recyclables, so that the weekly kerbside collection now includes aluminium foil and containers, clothes and blankets, shoes, batteries (even car batteries) and engine oil – and they’re even talking about collecting lightbulbs.

But, the key to the scheme’s success is that the weekly recycling collection also takes organic waste, from your kitchen and your garden.

You get a separate ‘caddy’ that you keep in your kitchen and that fits almost anywhere (it’s about the size of a medium kitchen bin).  The council then uses this waste to create compost for use in parks and gardens all over the city.

So, good news all round.  Recycling rates are up, landfill rates are down, the organic waste that people worry encourages vermin is still collected weekly and you get a nice green glow.

Here in Brighton I can buy my electricity from Scottish Power and my gas from South Wales Electricity – why can’t I buy my council waste services from Bristol City Council?!