The housing market is "dysfunctional" and its deep-seated problems will not be solved just by building more homes, the Council of Mortgage Lenders' (CML) chief economist has said.

Bob Pannell advised that a range of "deep-seated and inter-related" problems in the housing market were holding back a recovery in property sales.

He said: "We now have a dysfunctional housing market, beset by long-term structural problems that are difficult to address."

Mr Pannell said the total number of house purchases taking place in 2015 looked set to be a little over 1.2 million - which was no higher than levels seen in the mid-1990s, when housing market activity was depressed due to large numbers of home owners being trapped in negative equity.

Writing on the CML's website, he said: "Helpfully, government policy often focuses on encouraging new housing construction, and this is essential (although not sufficient) in helping deliver a long-term solution."

Home ownership was becoming increasingly polarised, and looking ahead property prices looked set to remain stretched relative to home owners' incomes, Mr Pannell added.

He said that a "growing mis-match between housing demand and supply" was "unlikely to be resolved by a fixation on new-build activity alone".

He argued that a more efficient use of existing housing could help to improve the imbalance in the market.

Even if the UK succeeded in building the 300,000 homes a year needed over the next decade, the fact was that 90% or more of housing that would exist in 2025 had already been built, he said.

"Government measures that nudge towards better use of the current stock could contribute materially to the supply-demand picture," Mr Pannell said.

Listing the challenges that existed, he said that increasing life expectancies and growing numbers of people living alone were boosting demand for homes, with many older people being reluctant or unable to move to a home that might better suit their needs.

Meanwhile, landlords were having an impact on the market, as they tended to expand their portfolios and did not release much property back onto the market for owner-occupiers.

Rising house prices were also reinforcing young people's tendencies towards renting, he said.

A recent report from accountancy firm PwC found that more than half of adults aged under 40 were expected to be privately renting their home by 2025 as the affordability pressures of getting on the housing ladder worsened.

PwC said that it expected to see a continuing rise in the proportion of households renting from around one in five (20%) now to around one in four (25%) by 2025.