I see that one of the city's biggest property firms is in trouble.
The Venmore Partnership has already closed branches. Staff have not been paid and it looks like the firm will have to be "rescued".
It employs 90 staff including the well known firm Ball and Percival which has literally been a household name in Southport for more than sixty years.
The credit crunch and the collapse in the housing market is being blamed an you can bet they are not the only estate agents that are struggling.
I hear that several firms are "right-sizing" and I guess that's inevitable since they can't employ staff if they are not selling homes.
But there is a hair on the back of my neck about all this.
The Government are supposed to have rescued the greedy, wanton banks who were a major catalyst in getting us into this pickle in the first place.
But I do not see the trickle-down effect in house building, the housing sales market or in the commercial sector for that matter.
There is a whole section of the building industry that is either in mothballs or just treading water to slowly complete the jobs that they already have under way.
There are at least six apartments schemes in Liverpool that are either abandoned or in the hands of receivers. All this because of a building bubble fueled by the banks.
They have had a sharp reality check but when it comes to future dealing banks it seems that it is us the customers (and taxpayers) that are going to have to pay
the price for their lunacy, twice over!
Not only has the exchequer mortgaged our future earnings as a nation to bail out the financial sector, but now I hear that the banks are upping their
interest rates to commercial customers saying "Well, we are borrowing from the government at 12% so we have to pass that on..."
Where will it all end? I have a nasty suspicion that the economy could really fall off a cliff after Christmas unless action is taken to get the housing market working.
It is now vital to the UK economy and without it the engine of the economy will stall.
Bob Weareing MP suggested in a Click Liverpool news story that the blighted apartments should be taken-over by housing associations and rented out at affordable rates.
It would get the building trade back in harness... not a bad idea!
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