UK home sales hit 30-year low

Real estate agents sold an average of just 11.5 properties during the three months ending in September--or under one property a week each, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' survey. That is 52 percent lower than a year earlier, and the lowest level the group has ever recorded since beginning the survey in 1978.

Home sales in London were the worst, with real estate agents there selling an average of just 8.3 properties over the last three months.

At the same time, the price agents were able to sell homes for also dropped. Ninety-one percent of agents across the country said that prices fell over the three-month period.

The survey found sales had been slashed by the financial crisis, which has seen mortgage lending fall to its lowest level in almost a decade and consumer confidence plummet.

"The housing market continues to hold its breath and unless mortgage liquidity improves, the market is likely to remain a dormant beast for some time to come," RICS spokesman Jeremy Leaf said.

More proof of how bad Britain's housing market has now gotten, construction company Bellway PLC reported on Tuesday that its annual profits had plunged by 84 percent.

The housing crash in Britain marks a massive turnaround for the market, which had enjoyed record price rises for a decade. In the ten years through 2007, the cost of an average house in Britain nearly doubled according to many indices, as banks' offered zero deposit and 110 percent mortgage deals.

Economists believe that the government will be able to prevent the market from erasing all those gains, however, by intervening.

On Monday, the British government invested 37 billion pounds ($63 billion) buying equity stakes in three of Britain's largest banks on the condition that banks would increase mortgage lending.