Countrywide hit by 'appalling' downturn

Britain's biggest chain of estate agents yesterday showed just how dramatically the housing market had slowed when it revealed it had suffered a loss for the first time in a decade.
Countrywide said its UK estate agency division made losses of £6.4m in the first six months of this year - down 129% on the £22m operating profit notched up a year earlier.

Chairman Christopher Sporborg said the housing market was "quite simply appalling" last winter, and added that the number of house sales exchanged in the first half of 2005 was almost a third lower than a year earlier.

Also elsewhere it says that they are closing 33 estate agency branches.

Looks like the housing slow down is starting to bite !

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