This is a strong column from @iainmartin1 but the line about 'an entirely unnecessary stamp-duty holiday' is classic wisdom-of-hindsight stuff, and misses the point/success of the policy thetimes.co.uk/article/this-p…
As our paper 'Help to Build' argued, the housebuilding sector is massively and dangerously cyclical - when recession hits, builders down tools. And due to the structure of the industry, housebuilding lags significantly behind the wider economy in the recovery.
This is a big reason why we consistently fail to hit housebuilding targets - because the sector is trapped in a cycle of boom and bust cps.org.uk/research/help-…
This is also because construction is driven by transactions - there is pretty much a straight-line relationship. When people stop buying houses, firms stop building them.
When the pandemic hit, there was every sign of this kind of freefall. Even when it was legal to work, the data showed v v clearly that firms were finishing existing projects rather than laying foundations for the future. (And winter was coming...)
The reason we called for intervention is that the alternative was for housebuilding to go into the deep freeze for years, slowing the wider recovery and making the housing crisis even worse.
As Iain says, the opposite is the case - the combination of furlough, pandemic-induced relocation and too much money chasing too few houses has sent the market a bit crazy. (Not sure resurrecting the Help to Buy Mortgage Guarantee will help on that front either.)
Like him, I hope the froth subsides. But the counterfactual here was not 'the housing market jollies along as normal', it was 'housing transactions and housebuilding fall off a cliff'.
And the fact that, as transactions have surged, housebuilding has climbed back above pre-pandemic levels - a massively faster recovery than in any of the recent recessions - shows that the stimulus did its job housingtoday.co.uk/news/housebuil…
For those interested in the data, this chart shows the impact of previous recessions on housebuilding - note how long it takes to reach previous peaks, if it ever does 
And this chart shows the calamitous impact on SME housebuilders, who are far less able to weather these storms
There's also obviously a wider economic impact - the rough rule of thumb is that one extra house = three extra jobs
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