If you’re fretting about the state of the housing market, don’t, because Britain’s largest residential landlord Grainger said on Wednesday it remained bullish about opportunities to buy real estate at great prices. OK, so if you’re selling this aint great news and the open market may not be the best place to get a fast house sale but if you’re buying.

Grainger has around £2.8 billion of property on it’s books and is trading well despite the gloomy market with almost £70 million of purchases planned and £154.8 million of sales in process. Despite the knock in confidence for the market place as a result of the RICS survey, the volume of property coming to market increased at its fastest pace since May 2007.

If you’re trying to sell property without much luck, image how the owners of the oldest house in Britain feel when the the best you can say about it is that ‘it’s a fixer upper’. Of course, we’re talking about the remains of the oldest house ever found in Britain which was discovered by archeological experts this week.

Evidence of the 10,500 year old, 12ft wide dwelling was unearthed at Star Carr, North Yorks and is thought to have been lived in by  huntergatherers, for more on the fascinating find, check out the full story…

Have a guess what the total value of privately owned homes in the UK is, go on have a think and pick a figure. Got it? OK, research conducted by Halifax (you’ve skipped this and looked at the number haven’t you), were you close? £3.755 Trillion, which is, a lot and more than double what the housing stock was worth just ten years ago.

Sitting at £1.719trn in 1999, the increase of more than £2trn in property value is equivalent to £33,000 per person in the UK, but as would be expected the value of the nation’s housing stock has fallen by 8% in the last 3 years, reflecting the reduction in those able to sell property and the drop in house prices. The research also revealed that the north-south gap is narrowing with the value of housing in the north increasing by 132% compared to 109% in the south over the decade.

At a time when houses are very affordable and mortgage deposits are so high, first time buyers (FTBs) are facing a veritable lock-out unless they can find 15% – 30% of the property value. So, how do you buy a house at a time like this? Well, maybe this can help…