House prices continue to fall. Home repossessions continue to rise. Banks are unwilling to lend mortgages and many homeowners are seeing negative equity. In the short term, the housing market is suffering from falling house prices and a great difficulty to get any houses sold.

The current housing difficulties have meant that the government’s target for building new homes has fallen well short.

In the 3 months to September new housing starts fell 33% on seasonally adjusted figures. Compared to last year they have fallen by 50%. It is the lowest level since 1980. It means the UK will struggle to build 100,000 homes in 2008 - well short of the government’s target of 240,000.

2009, is unlikely to see any upswing in the homebuilding market. As the UK population continues to grow it is causing the likelyhood of future chronic shortages in new homes.