Guardian: Turmoil to spark slump in lettings

"New York may be 3,500 miles from the UK, but the fallout from crises afflicting the giants of the financial world is affecting our own housing market.
The loss of thousands of Lehman jobs in the City of London and the Home Counties will have a severe impact on the corporate rental market, which had been one of the few property sectors performing well this year.
Rental agents Savills say 64 per cent of its corporate tenants in London work in the financial services industry, a proportion mirrored in most top-end lettings agencies. Large-scale job losses will result in the termination of tenancies on hundreds of top-end apartments and houses - most of them at rents of £1,000 a week or more - in 'prime' London areas such as Docklands, the City and Notting Hill."