Recently I was reading an interesting article on The Economist about the UK Housing Market. Whilst I do not agree with 100% of it (after all, the real estate markets have gone through various historical cycles), it is a well-argumented read. It basically says that whilst subventions via free land for the constructors might help, the housing market still has a huge inertia and might continue to grow.
One interesting extra argument (from my side this time) – the quantitative easing has introduced to the US/UK markets a lot of liquidity, which is not yet absorbed. As the liquidity will hardly find its place in new investments, it might find a safe cushion in the real-estate investments. One more reason why this might continue to be a good long-term investment.