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.

JCB, a big player in the ailing construction industry, is cutting nearly 400 more jobs, blaming "extreme deterioration in business levels and confidence" everywhere. The company announced 650 redundancies at is 11 factories in Britain in July.

The Staffordshire-based digger manufacturer is also going on to a 34-hour week, and is reducing production by 34% for November, December and the first quarter of 2009. Without these measures the job losses would have been much higher.

Leading housebuilder Taylor Wimpey confirmed yesterday that it had cut 1,000 more jobs, in response to a 27% drop in sales in the past four months.

The company has reduced its UK workforce by almost 1,900 so far this year, and warned that there was no immediate end in sight for the property slump.

SHIP (Safe Home Income Plans) - the trade body that represents 90% of regulated UK equity release providers - has today called on Trading Standards to take action against sale and rent back companies which it claims are misleading consumers. Equity release plans either buy or lend against a given percentage of a home and reclaim this percentage when the occupant - who must be over 55 - either dies or goes into a care home and the house is sold.

Property prices have fallen by 15% over the past year, but in one sector – city centre flats - the situation is worse – much worse.

Converted mills and warehouses, and new-build apartment blocks, were all the rage in Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds until the credit crunch struck. Now they stand empty in vast numbers. Those that do sell are at knockdown prices.

Property and construction is one of the sectors hardest hit by the economic downturn, with heavy job losses over the past three months. House sales have slumped in recent months, mainly because of the increase in the size of deposits required from prospective buyers, and this has led to cutbacks by a number of leading builders.

More than 300,000 jobs have been lost across the economy during this period, according to figures produced by Alert Research, with financial services also suffering heavy cuts.

The 33-year-old company said it had been forced to act because of the continuing effect of the economic downturn on housing. It had already announced earlier in the year that it was having to cut almost 300 jobs.

Citigroup analysts predict that 3m British households – 20% of the total – could be in negative equity as house prices continue to fall as a result of the property market downturn and economic recession. The figure at the moment is about half a million.

This estimate is considerably higher than the 1.8 million households that were in negative equity during the crisis of the early 1990s. It is also higher than the prediction in the Bank of England’s recent Financial Stability Report, which put the number who could be in negative equity by 2011 at 1.2 million.

More than a  quarter of a million homes in England stood emply last year, despite an alleged shortage of housing.

A survey by the mortgage bank Halifax found that 279,281 private homes had been empty for at least six months in April 2007. This was  a fall of  9% from the 308,438 recorded in April 2003 but empty homes still account for 3% or more of all homes in 17 local authorities.  The bank called on the Government to cut VAT on repairs to housing to encourage an improvement of housing stock in the most deprived areas.

House prices in Britain fell by 1.4% in October, and are now 14.6% lower than a year ago, according to Nationwide building society's latest survey.

Prices are on course to end the year at least 16% lower than at the start of 2008. The main lenders were predicting at the beginning of the year that house prices would remain flat for the whole 12 months.

House prices in England and Wales have fallen by an average of 8% over the past year, and 2.2% in the last month, according to the Land Registry’s September house price index. The trend in both cases is strongly downwards.

The average house price now stands at £168,814, which is a decrease from last month.

It will take house prices five years to return to the levels they reached in 2007, and they will not bottom-out until next year – by which time they will have fallen by 25%, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

If this prediction turns out to be accurate, it will mean that the value of the average house will have declined to £157,058 by the end of 2009 – about £50,000 below the peak price - and about 2.5 million homeowners will fall into negative equity.

The hotline offers free advice to callers who are struggling or behind with their mortgage repayments, or facing a possession order.

The Government has stepped in to protect homeowners at risk of repossession, making seizure of the family home a last resort for lenders. It is also taking action to bring so-called "sale and rentback" schemes under supervision by the Financial Services Authority.

The Master of the Rolls, Sir Anthony Clarke, has today approved the Civil Justice Council's new protocol for the courts in mortgage repossession cases. This sets out clear guidance on the steps that lenders are expected to take before bringing a claim in the courts to ensure that repossessions are a last resort.

In the light of Met Office forecasts of severe gales by this Friday (24 October) and storms for the weeks ahead, esure home insurance has urged homeowners to give their properties a 'storm MOT' while the weather is still mild.

The greatest risks from storms arise from problems with falling trees, falling masonry and dislodged roof tiles - which can lead to water getting into the property, damage to nearby cars or even injuries to passers-by, says the insurer.

New-build city centre apartment complexes have been the biggest losers as property prices have plunged, according to a survey by property website mouseprice.

The Birmingham Canal area, with many new developments, was the hardest hit, with a 17.3% drop in the value of flats in the past year. A property that was worth £185,000 in February would be priced at around £153,000 now.
 

House prices declined by 1.3% in September, bringing the annual fall to 12.4%, according to the latest Halifax house price index. But the rate of decline may be stabilising: the fall in September was the smallest for seven months.

The annual rate is calculated using a comparison of the past three months compared with the same three months a year ago, with the aim of cutting out any short-term volatility.

The number of mortgages for investment properties has dropped by close to a quarter in the past week, as lenders in the sector have made a swift retreat after the mortgage books of buy-to-let giant Bradford & Bingley was taken over by the Government.

Seven days ago there were 703 products to choose from; now there are only 540. Reduced competition is likely to lead to higher rates and even more difficulty in sourcing a mortgage, says Louise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com: "Yesterday's house price figures from Nationwide have confirmed what we all know - that prices are falling - and landlords are likely to be hit particularly hard by this. Rental yields are being squeezed as it is, and falling values will only make things worse.

"The lack of buy-to-let mortgage deals is another potential landmine, with lenders including NatWest, Bristol & West and, of course, Bradford & Bingley pulling many of their BTL mortgages this week."

Disappointed house-sellers are being forced to accept dwindling prices for their properties. Across the UK, houses are selling at an average of 9% below the asking price, with sellers in some regions being forced to accept as much as a 12.5% discount off their advertised price, says RICS research.

The rate at which house prices are falling speeded up in August, according to Land Registry figures for England and Wales. Prices fell by 1.9% last month, taking the annual rate of decline to 4.6%.

The average house now costs £174,493, which is £8,320 less than a year ago. The fall in August alone was £3,871.

Prices in London fell for the first time (3.2%) since the Registry started publishing figures in 2000.

In an attempt to side-step poor market conditions in the UK, Britons are increasingly looking to invest in buying property abroad, according to research out today from private bank Cater Allen. It  has found that over three million people are likely to buy a property overseas within the next two years, with 42% of these looking to use the property primarily as an investment opportunity.

But middle-aged Brits with some form of cash cushion are most likely to look to the horizon, found the research, with 17% of people aged 45 years or over considering the option.  An aspiring one in 10 of those aged between 18 and 34 are also looking to buy overseas - the majority of them, (60%) looking to buy purely as an investment.

Regionally, more wealthy Londoners are most likely to own a property abroad, with one in ten (10%) holding a set of keys to an overseas home.

Currently 2.3 million people already own a property abroad, with as many as 500,000 used solely for investment purposes.  On average, Britons who own a home abroad will visit the property between two and three times a year.

Sally Watts, Marketing Manager at Cater Allen, said: "With concerns that a deteriorating property market will not guarantee the returns that people expect from buying a property, more and more people are investigating how they can find investment returns elsewhere."

Send money abroad

First-time buyers are a rarity in this property market, but the ones that do remain estimate they need to have saved £19,100 in order to buy a property, according to research carried out today by The Co-operative Bank. Despite the nose-diving housing market, the research conducted among 1,500 first-time buyers shows that over half of those questioned (54%) still feel renting is 'throwing money down the drain'. This majority estimate that it will take them up to two years to begin thinking about buying their first home.

The rising cost of living is pushing more and more homeowners into taking in lodgers, according to a new survey out today. Flatshare website SpareRoom.co.uk found that 27,000 households have taken in a lodger over the last year to cope with pressures on household income such as higher mortgage payments and bills.

By the beginning of September the number of live-in landlords had grown from 324,000 to 351,000, while the lodger population rose from 452,000 to 477,000, the research found.

Households in the South East are spending over £100 more on fuel bills than those in some other UK regions according to reseach published today from MoneyExpert.com.

As energy firms announce further price increases, households in the South East pay an average of £955 annually on gas and electricity. Those in the North East pay the least at £851 a year, with London residents spending £888 on an annual basis.

If you've built a green home in the last year you could win £5,000 in a building society competition. Norwich & Peterborough will pay the cash to the family whose eco-home makes the most positive impact on the environment. The building society has staged its Eco Self-Build competition for the past seven years.

More than a third (38%) of all Britons are without home insurance, according to finance website, Fairinvestment.co.uk - in spite the recent serious bout of flooding which will affect 10% of all British households. Of those who are covered by home insurance, householders in London and Wales are least likely to be covered against floods.  But ironically, Wales experiences the highest average rainfall each year at 3,000 millilitres, compared to an average of 2,000 in England.

Confusion reigns among consumers when it comes to the homebuying process, as almost a third of homebuyers in the UK believe surveyors will carry out the conveyancing for their home purchase. This is according to a consumer awareness survey published today by online home moving service, Moveme.com.

The findings revealed that little more than half of homebuyers were aware that a solicitor would be responsible for conveyancing. Instead, 30% believed it was a surveyor's duty, 6% assumed it was the job of the estate agent and a surprising 10% expected the seller to carry out the process.

Many estate agents are selling less than one home a week, according to the latest figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The average number of transactions per surveyor fell further in August as a lack of mortgage finance continued to stifle the ability of buyers to access the market, said RICS' UK housing market survey.

Homeowners struggling with flood damage after the weekend's downpour are being advised to contact their insurance company for help as soon as possible. With further bad weather expected to hit the northeast in the next day or so, More Than has issued guidance to homes affected by the rising water levels.

With heavy rainstorms, strong winds and some flooding hitting many parts of the UK this weekend - and even more bad weather on its way next week - homeowners would be wise to take steps today to prevent damage to their homes, Halifax Home Insurance has warned. 

The South West, Wales and the North East of England will be the worst affected areas, according to the Met Office with two weeks' worth of rain (up to 50mm) set to fall during the next 24 hours. It also said that there will be a risk of localised flooding, particularly in Wales and South West regions.

A stamp duty holiday on properties costing less than £175,000 has been announced by the Government, as part of a package of measures to help the ailing housing market and boost the Prime Minister's faltering leadership.

The threshold for the tax, which is normally levied at the rate of 1% on the purchase of a residential property costing between £125,000 and £250,000, will be raised to £175,000 from tomorrow.

The price of a typical house fell by 1.9% in August, compared with 1.5% in July, according to the latest Nationwide House Price Index. The year-on-year fall stood at 10.5%, as against 8.1% a month earlier - bringing the annual fall into double digits for the first time since the fourth quarter of 1990.

The average house price is now £164,654, down from £169,316 in July.

Damage to the housing market caused by the announcement of a possible stamp duty holiday is getting worse, according to the latest poll of estate agents.

In an earlier survey by the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), 92% of agents thought the indecision had increased consumers concerns. That figure has now gone up to 98%, and 56% of agents say they have lost at least one sale since the revelation was made. More than 90% said that sellers, purchasers and applicants were still asking if they should hold off making a decision pending further information.

The National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)  is calling on the Government to help the property market by finally taking action on Home Information Packs (HIPs).

Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive of the NAEA, comments: "With the economic situation worsening and the property market still suffering, we are calling on the Government to take urgent action on HIPs.