Growing numbers of redundancies and a dearth of mortgage finance are forcing more homeowners to contact companies that can help them sell their properties quickly.

Property Portfolio Rescue (PPR), which buys properties from individuals and small businesses at knockdown prices with a view to letting them out, says inquiries from struggling sellers more than doubled last year.

The Property Buyers, another distressed property investor, has also seen more sellers come forward, while debt advice groups are reporting a strong rise in borrowers seeking help.

Property experts believe homeowners – particularly those who have recently lost their jobs – may be increasingly willing to turn to these services as they struggle to find buyers through estate agents and become desperate to stave off repossession.

Data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders showed that the number of home repossessions increased 54 per cent to 40,000 last year. This figure is expected to hit 75,000 in 2009.

While the recent sharp interest rate cuts have offered relief to some homeowners, many borrowers who have been made redundant or seen work dry up are having problems meeting their loan repayments.

Nick Hopkinson, director of PPR, says it is not just owners of properties at the lower end of the market who are running into difficulty. “We are seeing distressed sellers across the board,” he says. “As City bankers lose their jobs and are left with a £1m mortgage and no income, it can become a very big problem very quickly.”

PPR has recently bought property in areas such as Chelsea at “seriously distressed values”. Hopkinson has seen homeowners losing their jobs and being unable to let out their properties because rents have fallen as much as 30 per cent.

Some sellers have lost buyers months into a deal as they have failed to secure adequate mortgage finance. “Chains are collapsing and suddenly people who were thinking they would like to sell become desperate sellers, if, for instance, they have lost their job in the meantime,” says Hopkinson.

PPR expects around 3,300 inquiries from distressed property owners in the first three months of this year, up a third on last year.

Essential Information Group, which compiles data on property auctions, says the amount of repossessed property appearing at auctions has doubled in the past 18 months. Repossessed properties now account for 20 per cent of residential property offered at auction and sell for up to 60 per cent less than the owner paid.

Estate agents have also seen an increase in distressed property sales, even at the top end of the market.

Savills calculates that “needs-based sellers” – those fuelled by death, debt or divorce – increased from 15 per cent of the prime market in 2007 and the first half of 2008 to 25 per cent in the second half of last year. Unsurprisingly, home sellers are less prepared to sell in current market conditions unless they have a strong reason for doing so.

The agent says issues of job security and lower earnings have caused an increase in debt-related sales at the upper end in the past six months – most notably the last quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, Hamptons has seen little sign of distressed sales in the mass market but says there have been a number in the luxury new-build market. “The typical distressed sale is a £500,000-£1m rental investment that has not really worked,” says Phil Tennant, regional sales director.

“Owners might keep paying the mortgage for a while but eventually they will walk away.” He has dealt with repossessions in London riverside developments where the owners paid around £680,000 for an offplan apartment, did not manage to secure the expected rent, and are now offloading the properties for around £600,000.

But, in general, Hamptons has seen the supply of properties drop away in the past year. It says that while the number of buyers has fallen, the average number of applicants per property last month was 32 per cent higher than a year ago.

Agents across the Winkworth chain report very few distressed sales in recent months. Paul Bindra, manager of Winkworth Clerkenwell, says distressed sales stopped by October last year. “Mortgage rates are helping, and there is a feeling that the market is on the turn and properties are starting to sell again,” he says.

Some agents believe distressed sales would have been far more prevalent, particularly at the higher end, had interest rates not come down so quickly.

Borrowers struggling to pay a mortgage are advised to contact their lender as soon as possible to avoid having to sell their property at a low value or face repossession.