Someone on here said estate agents are no worse than car dealers. As a semi retired IT professional, I worked for an estate agent for a short while (thank goodness!) and I can confirm that they are much worse than any car dealership. I am referring to the pompous, arrogant no nothing partners who run these agencies not the underpaid employees.

However it, is my firm belief that it is not the "greedy vendors" as one agent on here put it, the agents encourage inflated house prices which of course is the very reason why properties stay on their books for months when vendors are finally forced to dramatically reduce their prices to sell. I've seen this happen time and again. Estate agents are not professional people by any stretch of the imagination and few have any idea about how to value a property other than inflate the price on one that had been sold down the road.

John Stephens, Battle, UK

And the bad news is...

Ad, UK,

I do not feel one ounce of symphony for anyone who has been caught up in the property crash. Individuals who have lied about their income to get a mortgage deserve everything that is coming their way as far as I am concerned. Lying about your income to get a mortgage is not something that has only been going on for a few years. I worked for an IFA in Essex 7 years ago and individuals were lying about their income at that time to get a mortgage and the lenders did not care they kept on lending. Even when mortgages stated to become regulated by the FSA mortgages were still being sold to individuals who could not afford the payments. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said earnings for men in the UK were £498 as at Nov 2007 so how could a fist time buyer ever afford a typical £150000 mortgage if they were not lying about income or arranging a crazy non status mortgage!

John, Cambridge,

"In a radical move to pour liquidity into the blocked lending markets, the Bank is preparing to tell banks and building societies that they will be able to use a wider range of assets as security for loans, and no longer have to rely on top-rated mortgage securities."

Sorry, I thought it was the extremely unreliable secuity offered in sub-prime mortgage deals that caused the current problem. How is agreeing to extend finance even less secure assets going to improve the stability of the banking sector?

Bob, Reading,

I agree with Judy of Liverpool - Estate Agents have had the good times - I can't feel any sorrow for them if they now have to face the bad - like the rest of us. I have had the odd good Estate Agent, but the last one I used was so bad, careless and incompetent that I replaced him in frustration. Like most things, the good will come through, the dross will go.

cluaran, Edinburgh,

Oh dear how sad.

I'm almost as upset as when they sacked all those Bankers in the 80s and 90s.

JDS, Cardiff, Wales

Not only estate agents that suffer in a down turn , all companies seem to put spending on hold so most sales folk have a tough time.

andy murray, reading, uk

Quick to the life boats!!!!

This ship is sinking

(muhuhuhuhahahaharrrrrrrrrr)

Mike, Liverpool, UK

As an Estate Agent myself.... I too actually hope that the rogue Agents are forced to close. Overvaluing to gain the instruction... well perhaps vendors should not be quite so greedy and look to a realistic valuation rather than just wanting to hear the hightet price. A house is only worth what a buyer is prepared to pay... and then the Mortgage valuer may well down value anyway. So get real now homeowners.. start living in the real world and stop being so greedy!
Remember less is more.

J Pennells, Norwich,

Wjats that saying. Oh Yes, "Reap what you sow" and these estate agents deerve all that they now get. Good riddance to them all.

John, Woking, Surrey

My heart bleeds for the poor "hard done by" estate agents!! Alongside "solicitors", they have been money grabbing parasites for far too long and hopefully many of them will "go to the wall". The housing market in this country has been on a "rollercoaster ride to destruction" for years, with the combined greed of estate agents, lenders and sellers, fuelling the flames, which now seek to engulf the market. Those lenders who gave 100% plus, to their clients, should be refused permision to get reposession orders and anyone who could be deemed to have been given a loan which was "above their means" to repay, should be legally allowed to stay in their property with no penalties, as long as they continue to pay the repayments, that they started with. Otherwise the ramifications of this crash will destroy all of us.

ian woolger, budleigh salterton, devon

If estate agents stop inflating valuations to gain their business and let properties sit on their books for months and months, the stock might move a little faster. This malpractice does no one any favours!

Vincent Wong, Milton Keynes, Bucks

Proof that the British eonomy is built solely on debt.

Gareth Jones, Dusseldorf, Germany

I have used estate agents twice in the last 30 years - first to buy, and last year to sell my house.

I used the same firm on both occasions, and both times the service was superb. I`d recommend these people to anyone for their professional attitude and competence.

In general estate agents are no worse than car dealers - and the same applies there. Pick a local firm with a history and a reputation to protect, and you should be ok.

On the other hand, nobody seems to appreciate the effect of high stamp duties and HIPS on the housing market. This is something the government could easily deal with in short order. But they won`t - stamp duty is too good a tax to miss, especially if you do not up-date for house-price inflation.

And HIPS? We obviously cannot expect the politicians to admit they made a mistake over that one! Most of us pay no attention anyway, and get a survey done as before.

CAB Sanders, Norton, Yorks

They've had all the good times so let them take the bad. Much like Bookmakers, I've never seen a poor estate Agent. They won't care about any of this, they'll just offload their workers who kept them going, (under pressure), during the good times. If you had to compare these people to anything in the natural world it would have to be leeches.

judy, Liverpool, England

The Bank of England has cut it's rate as has the Federal Reserve. Everyone has borrowed too much money and so the rates want to go up to slow the market but the governments want the rates to go down to try and keep this all going. It seems the lenders of smaller sums think they rates should not come down.

It's not the law that they have to follow the Bank of England, what do you think the Government will do? Make it the law? Or use threats against any bank on shakey ground. Bear Steirns was killed this way. Will they do a Northen Rock, or do a Bear Steirns on the next one to falter?

The crisis looks like it's been globally planned from the top whilst knowing that the greedy banks and borrowers will lap up all the liquidity.

Who's at fault the child taking the sweeties from the nice man in the car, or the nice man in the car for kidnapping?

Wayland Sothcott, Braintree, Essex

Banks should not be forced to pass on interest rate cuts to borrowers to bail them out of having binged on easy credit of the last 6 years. The banks should be raising the costs of borrowing to reflect the risks of lending out money to already massively indebted householders. The Government has only itself and Alan Greenspan to blame for the situation that people find themselves. As for 4000 estate agencies going bust - quite right, housing is a cyclical activity in the UK and too many of these estate agents have been guilty of pushing prices to unprecedented levels and preying on people's fear of missing out. Good riddance and I think the banks should ignore Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown and focus on protecting shareholders' money and rebuilding their capital bases. They should not pander to political short term expediency - if things pan out as they should, this Labour government should be voted out as a natural consequence of events.

Alex, Mayfair,

Watch out for a surge in petty crime with rises in fraud, confidence tricks, door to door harassment & pickpocketing

Julie F, Redding,

As a combination of the banks and estate agents probably contributed more thatn anything else to the horrendous rise in house prices throughout the 80's and 90's I really do not have a lot of sympathy. The only ones that I feel sorry for are the poor punters who for years have been paying more and more for the privilege of living in a house. In fact the banks got so greedy thatt hey bought half of the estate agents so thatt hey could make even more profit. So good luck to them all. I'll stay where I am in good old capitalist Russia where I can still buy a house at a sensible price.

Nick, moscow, Russia

A real pity because it would have been much better if houses continue to increase by 25% a year for the next 100 years !! Then estate agents would be the wealthiest people on the planet just for selling something that would have sold without their help ! It is incredible that some menial job should be paid so much. It is like acting as an agent for Ronaldinho and getting paid 50 million pounds - he would have been sold and transferred whoever represented him.

Albert Wood, Westminster, London

What is so bad about a bank going bankrupt? Isn't that why we have the word 'bankrupt' in the first place?

Erwin, London,

As an independent estate agent, I say "Bring back a Conservative government" and please let it happen, sooner rather than later...

Richard, Plymouth,

Oh dear!, how sad! . ..Never mind !

Pedro, Stratford,

What a tragedy ! Shock horror ! Those most loved members of our retail economy, the estate agent's are feeling the pinch. I think we should start a charity in support.
As regards the mortgage providers passing on the rate cuts, obviously they will all want to re build their balance sheets and in particular I can't see them offering 100% mortgages again.
House prices and estate agents are both going the same way now... DOWN. And about time too.

David Nammory, Liverpool,

Fewer estate agents. That can only mean more charity shops on the high street!

Rod, Preston, UK

Now it begins...

joe, Berwickshire, Scotland

I think its interesting that the government seems so concerned about the suffering homeowners when at the same time, taxing us into submission on fuel. I'm sure there is more than one lever to make it easier on us!! Perhaps they could use some of the billions the banks pay in Corporation tax to reduce the burden.

Paul, Rochester, Kent

Estate agents shutting, I have no problem with that - captive market selling isn't difficult in a boom.

How can the government force banks to lend at an interest rate less than they borrow the money at?? All that will happen is that banks reduce the number of mortgages they approve, further reducing liquidity.

Jonathan, London,

Without a mini bubble the larger bubble will crush the UK economy built in quicksand. The BoE knows this as they can at least understand some economic realities coming out of the lies and spin from the financial markets. The heads of these organizations are quite sad in that they did not see it coming....

All those false pieces of paper sitting on the desks of the underwriters. All those bonuses and holiday homes bought with the proceeds of selling so many mortgages, loans, credit cards, and it goes right through from domestic into the commercial lending sphere.

So.....the rate drop was all about houses then BoE?

All that crap about housing being overpriced. All that crap about a stable and healthy economy?

Utterly shameful!

(We seem to be heading for that $140 a barrel of oil then!)

Paul, London, Canada

4,000 you say. Well that's a start.

victor, london, uk.

why should the public have to pay for the mistakes the banks have made? the banks are very easy to squash mr. joe public when debt is there but who is there when the banks are in debt?

adrian, banstead,

prices rocket higher and bubble develops?

government sits on hands and does nothing.

prices start to go down and bubble starts to deflate?

government panics and fights to keep bubble inflated.

what a joke. i'm a labour supporter but they need to lose the next election.

Hugh, London,

Can someone explain the following? The major UK banks make annual profits of around 100 billion pounds. Why then does the BoE have to bail them out? How about they make a little less money for the next few years and suffer a little pain themselves rather than pass it all on to us?

Toby Walsh, Leigh on Sea, Essex

Lol...I don't think the majority of the population will be losing sleep over the demise of estate agents.

Bartman, London,

Oh....by the way. Some agents have already gone to the wall due to the slowdown. It started to bite months ago.

Even from Canada we have our sources - real estate agents living real lives.

Paul, London, Canada

I think the estate agents are more worried they might have to actually do some work now

Timmahh, Oxford,

Colin Smith - your summary is perfect.

James Simons, London,

I think the biggest problem is still the inflated house price. Unless there is a correction I do not see how the market will stabilize given the current conditions. The average house price for a 3 bed semi in our area (Harrow) is 300K. Unless there is a sharp fall, housing will still be unaffordable to most of the middle-income/low-income group which make up bulk of the market share in terms of purchase.

Amit, Harrow, UK

it sems to me that the govt. wants to maintain high house prices...........
hope folks remember that come election times

mike, gloucester, uk

I like the way Darling says "we've done our part, now the banks should do their part by passing on rate cuts". The government has hammered middle and working class people with stealth tax rise after stealth tax rise - the increase in mortgage payments we face is nothing compared to the additional tax we must all pay.

Alex D, London,

How about reforming the housing market too, for instance by stopping the ridiculous ability of buyers in England to gazump others.

Glenn, Bahrain,

So we will have less estate agents because of the credit crisis - nice to see every cloud has a silver lining.
In the UK if you've got a photocopier and a mobile phone you can become an estate agent.
It might also mean less 'For Sale' boards polluting our streets.

GJB, Slough, Berkshire

Hopefully this will flush out the 1/2% fee cutting agents that offer no skills other than the uploading of property details to the portals and sit and wait for the phone to ring, forcing other agents to reduce their fees and sacrifice the quality of staff they can afford to employ..... hmmmm

Stuart, London, UK

There are not just too many agents - there are too many poor agents who are simply not equipped to work this sort of market. I run a home based franchise of novahomes and we are still selling because we are working the market that is in front of us and not the market everybody wants to believe is around the corner. Hiding from reality will not help people to move. Lower prices are already helping people to buy and they are no bad thing for most people.

Mark, Chard, Somerset

The catastrophic hyperinflation in the property and services sectors are the causes, not the effect, of the present economic difficulties. Attempting, through the use of deliberately perverse incentives (which are wholly unprecedented) to sustain that hyperinflation is grotesquely irresponsible. Central banks should be acting so as to increase caution and prudence (for the long-term) to prevent such economic damage, rather than reducing it, such as to increase it.

James E. Petts, Burnham, England

Maybe they, and their banker colleagues who have not "invested" in property will have saved their bonus for a rainy day.

I doubt it though as they more than likely believed their own propaganda.

Let hope we, the great unenlightened tax payer, do not charge to the rescue of this bubble market.

Tom Taylor-Duxbury, Ludlow, UK

It's funny none complains about so called nanny state here.

When people or companies borrow money they should be aware of the risks involved.

Jane K, London, UK

It's only right that the government should pressure the banks to help out the estate agents. Have I understood that correctly?
Anyway, as the banks and estate agents and politicians are renowned for their honesty and straight dealing , it's all a very good thing.

john problem, winchester, uk

Sounds like a good time to buy a secondhand Mini car.

Costas, Cyprus,

The housing market is due for a correction. It is significantly overvalued according to most metrics and most serious market commentators (other than those with a vested interest in the market - such as economists who work for mortgage companies or estate agents). So, why pump more liquidity into the market? This is simply adding fuel to the flames. Also, painful as it may be, the UK will be better off with fewer estate agents (and hopefuly fewer prpoerty programmes on television!) All they do is feed an unproductive cycle of churning housing stock that has little fundamental economic benefit.

Rob B, London,

It would be interesting to read an article in The Times explaining the various mortgage-backed securities, with examples, that the BoE might and might not accept. Should the bank accept a tranche of new first time buyers with only £7,500 deposit and is it right that the BoE, which should be described as a public institution, accept lower level risks that commercial banks have taken with a view to profit making? Are the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve examples of prudent organisations able to make such decisions? And how would you compare comercial and central banks attitude and management of risk to say that of a Nuclear power station?

May be you should write a book on this one.

Tim Ashdown, Bruton, Somerset

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are totally at sea, economically and politically, and Brown is solely responsible for cranking up a false economy built on unsustainable debt and total social dependence on the state. He took the credit hen the foolish were applauding him and now he will have to accept the opprobrium.The banks are free institutions and have a duty to their shareholders, and not the government. Nobody, including the lenders, trusts Brown any more, on any level, so why would any business be guided by his instructions.

There are too many estate agents, and there will be closures.

Our economy is going south. We throw money at the feckless and lazy in this country, while taxing the industrious and decent; and now these same responsible people are suffering even more than before. Thanks Brown. You were a crap Chancellor to a megalomaniac Prime Minister. Soon you will be gone, but the British people will not forget what you have done to them.

Colin Smith, Norwich, UK

If the central banks agree to accept lower rated collateral (that they use for security when injecting liquidity into the banking markets), then in effect the tax payer is underwriting the whole boom in cheap credit and compensating banks for their loose lending criteria. The banks will have gotten away with 10 years of record gains and then the Central Banks are compensating them when those poor quality borrowers default.

Still, what's worse? If the Gov lets the credit crisis intensify the ramifications for the economy are so bad that it has little choice but to prop up the banking system.

Eoin, London,

Excellent! Noone is more deserving of a good drubbing than Estate Agents! They deserve all they get.

Anthony Smales, Beverley, UK

This problem is the result of too much easy lending, so now whizz kid Brown wants more easy lending, the man is an idiot. No mortgage should be for more than 90% of the true property value. If he does want to help then withdraw HIP's which do no good whatsoever and just add to the cost of property and remove stamp duty on all property below £1,000,000.

Peter Fordham, Pego, Spain

re gold standard bank, simple business, avoidance of leverage etc. We already have them - they're called building societies, the largest example by far being Nationwide.

Never demutualised, never had competitive pressures from shareholders, institutions etc, never pressured into stupid lending.

Long term, eh?

Ian Smith, London,

That's a bit like the old joke.

Q. What do you call 4,000 estate agents closing?
A. A start

Bill Peter, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

So, when prices go down it is a crisis but when prices go out of most people's reach it's not. What kind of Alice in Wonderland country are we living in?

Frederick, London, UK

"....Can't we just start a new bank? I don't see how we can possibly trust any of the existing ones ever again anyway.

DickW, Aberdeenshire, Scotland ..........."

Its called Northern Rock Dick.

Austin Tassletine, South West, UK

Watch out. You could be working next door to an estate agent very soon.

Andy, hove,

The banks can't come clean. The financial instruments they have all used are so complex they have no idea how big the losses are that they are exposed to.

".....If they don't know what losses they themselves are exposed to, they will still not trust any other bank enough to lend to them. This will not unlock the credit markets. The only thing The market says the banks are nursing large, unquantified losses

Hilary, Southall, ......"

They do know Hilary, they have actuaries working for them (well they should do as Friends Provident should have known about reserves necessary as they had actuaries working for them)). I suspect that they just aren't saying (and the Freedom Of Information Act 2000 does not apply to private information).

Alistairs Solicitors, South West, UK

Estate Agents have had it very good for very long now, they now can't complain if business goes quiet for a few years... Afterall they played a major part in driving the property prices up in the first place (and are even bigger gainers than the landlords/property owners) so should had tucked some money away for such bad times.

R, LONDON,

Every cloud has a silver lining, then. Good. Let them eat cake.

Dave , Notts, UK

Typical We got into this mess by over borrowing. so we can now look at continuing to borrow, instead of letting the free market dictate and put us back to normality.
Look forward to in a few more years a huge bust like never ever seen or imagined. You cannot keep borrowing.

Andy, petersfield,

Let us not feel too sorry for the 'impoverished' estate agents. They get what they deserve. I have only ever bought a house three times and sold twice. But in that time I have been ringfenced and had an estate agent value my property 20% below market value on the pretext that they had a customer who lived down the road. 12 months later the same agent valued the property for 33% more . When I went to discuss the wide variation in valuation, guess what? The person who lived down the road emerged from the estate agents back office. All became clear. Hmmm. Clearly such practices are ethically and morally justified by the greedy worms that practice them.
For a profession that adds little value, they get paid huge amounts.
Ask yourself this. Who does more work during a house sale? The agent or the solicitor? And what are there comparative rewards? Somethings not quite right is it.

Andrew, Maidenhead,

Looking at some of the "suits", both male and female I see working in estate agency offices, I can see a great future for them as shop window mannequins, but certainly not brickies, or any other real job!

Anne Wotana Kaye, London, England

A large part of the problem - not mentioned here - has been the introduction of a sales tax on houses, namely HIPs.

This has stopped peole putting their houses on the market to test the water and has reduced the number of houses for sale by around 20% at a stroke.

john, Oxford, England

Shame.

Harry, Poole, UK

So the bank of England and the government are saying if you lower your rates to borrowers, we will change our criteria to accept more loans of your books. If you don't we won't. help you.
But Gordon Brown and Darling said we have a strong economy and we wont have an issue in the UK?
So what is really going on?
And isn't this just prolonging it and putting huge risk at the taxpayers expense.
As a tax payer I don't want this risk

Andy, petersfield,

It is impossible to stabalise house prices with rate cuts passed on to the customer if nobody wants to buy!

People who bought a house for £70k before '97 have seen the house next door sell for £200k and cashed in the massive increase with the thought 'I'm rich', leaving them open to falls in house value but still left paying for it. SInce the capital has gone on expensive cars which lose value quickly or holidays, higher repayments are squeezing what little money the households now have left. How can anybody think that this is not a problem???? The only solution would be for house prices to continue rising at the monsterous rate seen over the last 11 years, obviously not possible or a good thing by any stretch.

Alistair Kipling, Birmingham,

4000 estate agents to close..........oh the humanity! finaly some good news!

john, corby, northants

Gordon Brown only has himself to blame:
1. He was responsible for financial markets regulation and let UK banks' balance sheets weaken so they have between a third to half the percentage of equity on their balance sheets as compared to their US counterparts.
2. He manipulated monetary policy committee appointments in order for the Bank of England to have a dovish stance, even in boom times.
3. He ran a budget deficit in boom times.
As a consequence Brown can't increase public spending now without raising taxes, whilst banks can not pass on lower official interest rates owing to their weak capitalisation.

Richard Schreuder, The Hague, The Netherlands

Our little Darling will now flatter himself that his pathetic urgingshave turned tigers into tabby-cats. The cost of mortgages reflects the balance between the demand for credit and its availability. Because the BoE has just relaxed the latter, the mortgage rate will be forced into line with Bank Rate by the market, not by the threats of a Chancellor who has repeatedly demonstrated his lack of backbone.

Noel Falconer MEcon, Couiza, France

Isn't this just the point: financial institutions have been encouraged to help people buy thier houses by the government and in the process threw bankig caution to the wind with 100%+ and 5 times earnings loans- now we are in trouble.
Surely the banks need to be cautious now, not encouraged to be reckless again. Oddly they have a duty to their shareholders whose funds they use and have shown they follow the herd into the bog and it all ends in tears.

William, London, UK

"4000 estate agents to close"

I will try hard to contain my grief.

julia, london,

There are too many eatste agents anyway.

Mick, Gold Coast, Australia

Here is Spain where the property bubble has also burst,140,000 estate agents have lost their jobs in the last 18 months.Many thousands of estate agents have gone out of business.
Like most bubbles,irrational exuberance takes over and people lose touch with any sense of reality.
There is an old Wall street adage that goes "When the shoe shine boy tells you he is buying gold,it's time to sell eveything."
Every Tom,Dick and Harry has been buying "buy to let "and become a "property developer,"so we know things are really bad.
A 40% correction would be about right,considering house prices have doubled in the last five years.

James Currie, Marbella, Espana

Our economy, within the UK as elsewhere, seems to be closely interlinked with the cost of oil and road fuels. As we are told that 80% of the cost of a litre of fuel is excise tax, including VAT, it strikes me the Government could slash the cost of fuel to perhaps half on what it is now by lessening the various taxes. The lower cost of fuel would bring down inflation rapidly, we would all have more money in our pockets, the costs of delivered foods and other items would fall. Why are we paying current insanely high fuel prices anyway?. What is being done with this fuel tax?. It certaily is not beingspent improving our road network.

Shamus Bean, Somerton, UK

I'd like to see a new bank that adheres to the gold standard. It can run in parallel with the BoE. People can then choose which one they prefer: the BoE, with its taxation by inflation, or the new bank with without inflation.

kris, Scotland, Great Britain

I suppose if only up to half the property in the UK gets sold.
The estate agents either double their selling fees or trim their sales staff down.
Some will merge, resulting in more partners than staff!.

Many will then use the current difficulties to justify, if only to themselves, illegal and unethical practices that some of the estate agent practice on the side already, I mean.. who are we kidding!!.

That, nasty side of estate agency will get even worse.
Persuading vunrunble people, usually older folk to sell their hard earned property off cheap, unknowingly to the agents faceless backroom business buddies, who in a flash put the property on again +50%.
I have seen it myself.

These are the ones I would like to see go out of business for good. And will be glad when they are.

Sean Hamerton, York., England.

The Govenment now realises what a mess we appear to be in. Unfortunatly they are part of the cause. The BoE and Brown were only too happy to see the massive property bubble build up as it was injecting money into the economy, but all the money was borrowed.

The borrowed money has to be paid back, it'll be painful.

Paul, Camberley,

Can't we just start a new bank? I don't see how we can possibly trust any of the existing ones ever again anyway.

DickW, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

The boom in the number of estate agents is a product of the boom in a housing market - and wider economy - fuelled by debt: in other words, an unsustainable and temporary bubble. I have zilch sympathy.

David C, Brussels , Belgium

Does this include the NR?If it does then the tax payer is subsidising house price inflation.They should have included house prices in the inflation figures.No wonder the pound is falling.

Stephen Hulton, eure, france

Since when has it been for the Goverment or the Bank of England to decide on the margin that banks derive from their money ?

The BoE was quite happy to sit on the sidelines (at the direction of the government) when the housing bubble was created, but now they want to keep that same bubble inflated.

Madness.

Clive, Surrey,

The banks can't come clean. The financial instruments they have all used are so complex they have no idea how big the losses are that they are exposed to.

If they don't know what losses they themselves are exposed to, they will still not trust any other bank enough to lend to them. This will not unlock the credit markets. The only thing that will do that is an extended period of risk-averse lending which, as far as the mortgage market goes, means lower loan to value ratios and banks being choosier about who they lend to. So, more of the same. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are fools if they think they can somehow buck the market. The market says the banks are nursing large, unquantified losses.

Hilary, Southall,