The Halifax is to close over 50 of its estate agent branches across the country with the loss of around a hundred jobs.
The move by the Halifax comes on the back of what they have described as a significant decline in house sale numbers over the last 12 months. The heart of the Halifax estate agency business is in the North and Midlands, and it is here that they will focus most of their efforts moving forwards.
Around 550 people will find their estate agency branches closing but the Halifax will be able to relocate most of these people, with a hundred that will hopefully be taken up primarily through voluntary redundancies and natural staff turnover.
The Halifax House Price Index for April showed a large fall of 1.3 percent, a significant fall in the period of just one month.
Predicting the state of the housing market for the rest of the year the Halifax anticipate an overall fall that will be less than 10 percent, though there will be large differences in this depending on where in the country they are. They expect prices to actually go up in Scotland for example, though houses in the West Midlands and Wales are forecast to see heavier than average price falls.
A Halifax spokesman suggested that the falling prices should be seen against their recent history of strong price rises for several years. In this context house prices can still be seen to be very strong compared with the long term trends.
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