The reason is the economics of an aging society, in which a higher proportion of older people live longer and thus have more non-working years of retirement in which they must live on their assets, like housing.

But there will be more and more older people trying to sell their houses into a market of fewer younger people, so prices are likely to drop.

The BIS is the international central bank for 53 of the world's biggest national and regional central banks. In its own mission statement it "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks." It carries great weight and its surveys are to be taken seriously.

Its survey of prospects for the global housing market, titled "Aging and Asset Prices," written by Elod Takats, one of its in-house economists, represents the growing new field of studies into the ominous implications of the rise in human longevity.

The number of older people (age 65 and over) in the United States will double over the next 30 years, from 40 million to 80 million, and the percentage of older people in the population is going to jump from 13 percent to 20 percent. There are already more people over the age of 60 than children under 15.

By the time the youngest baby boomers turn 65 in 2029, every fifth American will be 65 or older. The percentage of 85-year-olds will grow even faster. 2029 is not far away, the time when one of this year's newborn babies will be going to college.

This isn't simply an American problem. In fact, thanks to relatively high birth rates and immigration the United States is getting off lightly. Take Britain, for example, where in 1980 a 65-year-old Englishman had a 1-in-1,000 chance of living to be 100 years old. Just 30 years later, this figure has increased to 1-in-100. And China is going to have one-third of its population over the age of 60 by the 2030s.

At one level, all this is wonderful news. It means longer and even richer lives, more time to achieve things and to enjoy life. But there is a darker side. How does a society finance this swollen population of the elderly when they need pensions and healthcare?

A 2004 Medicare survey spells this out in grim detail. The health costs of the average American ages 65 to 74 were $10,778 a year, of which half was paid by Medicare. The costs for those ages 75 to 84 were $16,228 a year, of which half was paid by Medicare. For those over the age of 85, the costs were $25,291 a year, of which 60 percent was paid by Medicare and Medicaid. For the rest, old people had to spend their assets.

Those cost figures have already risen by an average 45 percent in the last six years, and the Medicare share is set to increase by a further 60 percent because of the new subsidies for medicines. And the dramatic rise in the number of elderly suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease, set to more than triple from 3 million today to 11 million in 2050, will increase the costs -- already running at more than $120 billion a year.

Either all these new costs are paid by a shrinking number of younger people of working age, or by some wondrous breakthrough in productivity or the old folk pay for themselves through their savings and their assets.

The BIS survey found that the demographics of younger populations had helped boost house prices and asset prices in the last 10-20 years but that this tailwind was turning into a headwind for asset prices.

"The young save for old age by buying assets, while the old sell assets to finance retirement. This asset transfer can happen directly or through institutions such as pension funds. In this setting, the change in the relative size of asset buyers (the young) and sellers (the old), have consequences for asset prices," the survey says.

"In particular, the asset purchases of a large working-age generation, such as the baby boomers in the United States, drives asset prices up. Conversely, if the economy is aging, i.e., the subsequent young generation is relatively smaller, then asset prices decline. In the last 30 years, during the active years of the baby boomer generation, asset prices have increased massively," it goes on.

"Asset prices propelled by the boomers' savings will be under pressure when this large generation retires and starts to sell its assets to the relatively smaller subsequent generation."

The biggest problem, the BIS paper notes, may not be the impact of lower house prices but the much higher burden of spending on health and pensions on governments already overburdened with debt.

It may not be quite so bad. A detailed new study by Risk Management Solutions suggests that the recent surge in longevity may be only temporary, based on medical advances and people stopping smoking and reducing their risk of heart disease. We shall see. But even if the problem is less acute, it will still be chronic.

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