HOUSEBUILDER Barratt Developments today warned of a tighter UK housing market as it posted a 9.3 per cent rise in annual pre-tax profit.

JIM STANTON, BUSINESS EDITOR, The Scotsman – 26 September 2007

Barratt, which has a number of developments across Edinburgh and the Lothians, said the series of five interest rate rises since August 2006, along with the current financial squeeze in lending markets, would affect the housing sector. But it said it had no idea how long markets might take to recover.

And it said that house sales plunged by as much as ten per cent last week as the global lending crisis escalated in the wake of the Northern Rock situation – full article