Mortgage broker John Charcol is restructuring.

Moneymarketing.co.uk reports John Charcol is restructuring. The UK broker is to reveal redundancies later and for instance, the Birmingham branch was closed recently. Redundancies are to be confirmed later and technical manager Katie Tucker
has already left.

I suppose this shows the painful adjustment being experienced by companies in the UK housing sector.

The British housing market still operates.

The British housing market still operates. Houses still have for-sale signs. There are also cash purchases, which do not need mortgage finance. It is unfortunate that two main lenders Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley are limping along. However, the Nationwide points out that house prices are still 10 pct higher than they were three years ago.
Yet, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable notes that the housing market has been seriously overvalued for some time thanks to massive consumer debt in a quote to
moneymarketing.co.uk.

The housing market is crucial to the UK economy and I am surprised that stamp duty has not been cut to help sentiment. British Chancellor Alistair Darling should have carried out a cut at the March budget since it would have been quite a powerful signal. He perhaps does not have the money at his disposal but a cut then would have been more helpful. The quoted UK housebuilders are going through a torrid time.
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British housing market bust?

Are we going to see a British housing market bust? The housing market has certainly frozen up with the lenders tightening their criteria. For instance, there are no more
100 pct plus loans and we have not really felt the knock-on effect of Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley hitting trouble. The missus' share stake in B & B has such a forlorn value that I have to wonder when the shares will ever recover.
www.searchifa.co.ukFirst-time buyers should be helped by a reduction in stamp duty but a thoughtful article (sorry harrowing article) in the New Statesman says that nobody should be considering a property purchase at the moment. I suppose we just have to sit out the next two years but the Labour Government has always wanted a buoyant housing market for the feel-good factor during general elections, so 2010 anybody?
Northern Rock could hit a real financial mess if the housing market goes down and the Government now probably wished that it was not so picky about Lloyds TSB. Northern Rock is also undermining the stability of the housing market through its shrinking programme. It might make perfect sense to force customers to go elsewhere but not if there is not much of an elsewhere to go to.