At least 5,000 properties a week are being put on the market because their owners can’t afford to keep up the mortgage payments. That’s about 20% of all houses up for sale at the moment, according to the National Association of Estate Agents. It’s known as “forced downsizing”.

The situation is even worse than those figures suggest in some areas: one in five estate agents said forced downsizing sales accounted for half of all properties on their books.

Homeowners who do not manage to sell their properties before they fall into serious arrears face the prospect of repossession, and the numbers are rising there, too.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) published quarterly data and analysis today on mortgage arrears and repossessions, which show that 1.44% of mortgages were at least three months in arrears at the end of September 2008.

This was up from 1.33% at the end of June. The number of cases in arrears at the end of September was 168,000, 8% higher than the 155,600 at the end of June. The number of households in arrears by the end of the year is likely to exceed the previous forecast of 170,000.

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