HOUSE prices in Ealing are likely to shoot up by almost 30 per cent in the next four years, according to property pundits.

This month's Your Mortgage magazine forecasts the average price in the borough will increase by 29.6 per cent by the end of 2010.

Researchers believe inflation this year will be just 1.3 per cent but Ealing prices will soar in the next three years with rises of 6.9 per cent in 2007, 7.1 per cent in 2008, 6.3 per cent in 2009 before trimming back to 5.1 per cent in 2010.

Why the leap? Paula John, editor of yourmortgage.co.uk, explains: "The increases we are seeing are in a large part down to the basic economics of supply and demand. Demand increases all the time as smaller households and inward immigration swell the adult population.

"Furthermore we are not building anywhere like sufficient numbers of new properties and are not likely to do so in the short-to-medium term.

"This is underpinned by an increasingly competitive mortgage market keeping the cost of borrowing relatively low, despite this year's small increase in the base rate and the possibility of a further increase this year."

Gary Smith at the Ealing office of Robertson, Smith & Kempson believes the forecast could be right but he dismisses the 1.3 per cent prophesy for this year as well wide of the mark.

"From January to now, prices have risen by roughly ten per cent in 2006. We've had an exceptional year."