Estate agents 'face decimation

Up to 3,000 estate agents face the axe following a dramatic fall in mortgage lending, experts warned last night. The cull would be the biggest since the 1991 recession and would represent 10 per cent of the industry's total workforce of 30,000.

One in 10 agents lost their jobs in the early Nineties slump. Roger Bootle, economic adviser to Deloitte, the accountancy giant, said: 'If you are asking me "Could it happen again?", the answer is very definitely "Yes."

'There will not be enough business out there to justify the current high levels of estate agent employment.'

Peter Bolton King, head of the National Association of Estate Agents, said it was far too early to predict what would happen in 2005 following recent interest rate rises.

He believes trade could still pick up by Easter. But he admitted: 'We have been surprised by the suddenness of the downturn in mortgage transactions. Some of our members are not rushing to replace staff who leave.'

Saxon Brettell of Cambridge Econometrics, an independent research consultancy, said: 'Jobs would go as the housing market cools - especially outside London, in regions where there is no pressure on supply. None of this bodes well for estate agents.'

Neil Woodford, a leading fund manager at Invesco Perpetual, said it was quite possible that there could be several thousand fewer estate agents a year from now - 'The precise reduction depends on how much fat they have put on in the boom years.'

Woodford is a bear about property and believes prices will fall 'by between 20 per cent and 30 per cent'.On Friday, the Halifax forecast the first annual fall in house prices in 15 years.