Credit crisis halves the housing market as mortgage approval slump 46%

It emerged yesterday that house sales through estate agents are down 50 per cent and the number of Britons taking out a mortgage has collapsed by 46 per cent.

The National Association of Estate Agents said its firms sold an average of seven homes in March, compared to 14 last year.

One firm, from Essex, said: "Agents in the county are using comments such as 'dire', 'apathy' and 'miserable'.

"There are now clear signs of redundancies and offices closing together with a strong feeling that this market is similar to 1989 (the last crash)."

At the same time, just 35,417 Britons got a loan to buy a house, the lowest monthly level since records began.

At the height of the boom in 2002, more than 3,000 loans were handed out every day - today it has plunged to 1,100.

Analysts at Capital Economics said it is a sign that lenders are "effectively closing their doors to all but the most credit-worthy borrowers".

A third warning signal came from the Bank of England which claimed the number of people pulling out of buying homes because they cannot get a loan, or because they lose their nerve, had jumped.

About 75 per cent of cheap loans have disappeared since last summer and lenders are also making it more difficult to get a loan.

More than 60 per cent of them have still not cut their standard variable rate, nearly two weeks after the Bank of England's base rate cut.

Many more have not passed on the full 0.25 per cent cut, according to the financial information firm Moneyfacts.

Among the worst offenders is the Leicestershire-based Earl Shilton Building Society, whose SVR is down just 0.05 per cent.

Howard Archer, chief UK economist at the consultancy Global Insight, said: "Mortgage activity is being pummelled by a toxic combination of stretched affordability and very tight lending conditions."

Yesterday Yorkshire Building Society became the first lender to cut its "income multiple".

It used to lend up to five times' of an applicant's salary if they earned £55,000 or more. Now it is only prepared to lend 4.5 times of £40,000 or more.

The society, which is one of the country's major lenders, is also insisting on a minimum deposit of 10 per cent, rather than five.

All the figures point to a housing market which is in crisis, largely fuelled by a mortgage market which has changed beyond recognition.

The Bank of England's 'Summary of Business Conditions' report said sellers are having to accept 'sizeable' discounts on asking prices, often having to accept two cuts.

The website Property Snake, which tracks falling asking prices, says some homeowners are cutting up to 44 per cent off the original asking price. Overall, the National Association of Estate Agents said the number of sales falling through jumped to one in ten last month, compared to one in 12 in February.

The association said the figures were 'depressingly low', at what is usually one of its busiest times of the year.

It warned: "The current cloud of external pressures is having an unsettling effect on would be purchasers causing them to remain in their current home or to continue renting."

One of Britain's biggest firm of independent estate agents, Movewithus, warned recently one in three of Britain's 12,000 estate agents could close over the next year.

The most likely victims will be small, independent firms which opened in the boom.

House prices are predicted to fall about 20 per cent over the next two years.

And while this means many may finally be able to afford a new property or move up the chain, the big losers will be those who bought a home in the last couple of years who could be plunged into negative equity.