Halifax is closing a quarter of of its estate agents branches as a result of the housing market downturn, the banking group said today.

It will shut 53 of its 204 branches before the end of the year, leading to 100 job cuts, although the group said the other 450 staff employed in the affected branches would be transferred to similar roles in its banks.

This comes just a week after HBOS, which owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, announced about more than 400 jobs cuts as part of wide-ranging shake-up, including the closure of The Mortgage Business, its specialist lending arm, and the scaling down of accounts offered by Intelligent Finance, its online banking arm.

Halifax said it would now concentrate on its core estate agency business in the Midlands and the North. Following the changes, it will have 151 branches.

Housing transactions have halved in the wake of the credit crunch, hitting estate agents and mortgage brokers hard. Humberts, the estate agents, reported losses of £16 million in June, while John Charcol, the mortgage broker, was forced to shut three offices and cut its workforce by a quarter in June.

Construction firms are also being hit hard, with thousands of job losses across the industry.

Recent figures from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) showed that estate agents sold an average of just six properties each during July, down from 10 in July last year.

Chris Wood, president of the NAEA, said last month that as many as 6,000 estate agents could lose their jobs this year.

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