Mark Carney refused to be drawn on whether the economy had turned the corner
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has told MPs "we do need to be vigilant" on house prices.
Addressing the Treasury Committee he said the central bank had a "considerable range of policy options" that would start with "more intensive supervision of mortgage lending".
There have been some concerns that government measures to support the housing market could lead to a bubble.
Mr Carney said not all of the country had seen a recovery in house prices.
He stressed that across the nation, house prices in many areas were only at two thirds or three quarters of pre-crisis levels.
"There are big pockets of the country where there has not been any meaningful recovery," he added.
He added that dealing with a house price bubble would be the job of the Bank's new Financial Policy Committee.
If tighter supervision did not work, he said that in an extreme situation the Bank could force mortgage lenders to set aside more capital, which would reduce the amount they were able to lend.
But he said that the central bank did not have the power to order lenders not to offer mortgages above a certain percentage of the value of a property.
Mr Carney refused to be drawn on whether the economy had turned the corner, as the Chancellor, George Osborne, said it had.
He said that we "shouldn't be satisfied" with this recovery, but added that, "the economy is picking up and the stimulus is working".
Source: BBC News - Business http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24060130#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
