Investors are again prepared to bet on the nation’s obsession with buying and selling homes, recent events indicate.

 

News that Foxtons could be heading for a stock market flotation and Countrywide’s successful initial public offering indicates the revival of interest in housing and the businesses exposed to it, the Financial Times reports. KPMG said it was a market at, or only just emerging from, its trough. KPMG said estate agents were in the front row to capture a rise in activity and also had the double exposure of the rented market in case sales did not accelerate. Tempus, in The Times, says Countrywide’s shares look expensive compared with other quoted companies, such as Savills, that are less exposed to the British market. Britain’s biggest estate agency group closed down 2.5p at 389p.