Countrywide, the UK’s biggest estate agency, recently made a tentative approach to buy the Halifax chain of estate agents from HBOS, showing the private equity-owned company is prepared to examine possible acquisitions even with the housing market in free fall.

The approach, which was at an early stage and was rejected by the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, illustrates that Countrywide remains confident of surviving the property slump even though its £640m of bonds are trading at a fraction of their face value, indicating heavy scepticism from investors.