Last week brought news that a third of all houses in the UK are now bought entirely with cash payments, a fact that it is believed has helped to push house prices above and beyond all previous records.

A recent article in the Financial Times, found that 35% of sales of houses were paid for in cash. This is particularly common in London, where an estimated £9bn of cash has been spent on property in just 3 months. Most of this money has been spent by foreign buyers.

As house prices continue to rise across the country, the RICS has recommended that the government introduce “speed bumps”, in a bid to help regulate the housing market before it gets too out of control.

However, some housing experts do not see the need to fear a housing price increase. Richard Donnell, a research director at housing data company Hometrack, told the Financial Times, “a housing bubble is defined by prices rising at unsustainable levels and people taking on too much debt. Neither of those things are happening.”

The disparity between London, where house prices are rising at a phenomenal rate, and the rest of the country where house prices remain low in many regions is becoming a tricky issue for the government to deal with.

Chancellor George Osborne was last week at pains to dispel gathering fears that the current government’s Help to Buy and Funding for Lending schemes are actually making the housing market worse instead of better.

Whilst acknowledging that prices outside of London were still slow, he told the Institute of Directors at their annual conference, that the UK economy is “turning a corner.”

It’s hoped that schemes like Help to Buy will assist homebuyers outside of the capital, but some MP’s warn that just because house prices remain low across the UK, they should not be though of as affordable.

MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy told the Financial Times, for young people in particular, “there is still a real problem in relation to getting on the housing ladder in the first place.” Although house prices in her town, had remained lower than in London, “that doesn’t mean they are affordable.”

So, for now it looks as though house prices in the North West will remain lower than their London counterparts. But should we be worried about a “housing bubble” being created?

For now, it would appear not. House prices are indeed starting to recover across the UK, and less and less people are having to take out loans to purchase property.

However, house prices in London are rising at a much faster rate than the rest of the country. A report in the Daily Mail last week, highlighted figures from the National Office of Statistics, which showed a 3.1%, increase in house prices nationally. When London was taken out of the equation however, that figure dropped to just 1.3%.

The next couple of months should be very interesting for the UK housing market, as we look to avoid a dreaded “housing bubble”, in danger of bursting very quickly.