The owner of Wolverhampton Wanderers now leads a company that earlier this month admitted its revenues had more than halved from £650.1m to £301.8m. All housebuilders are suffering this year as the number of homes being built falls to a low not seen since the second world war. Hundreds of thousands of builders have been laid off, forcing the government to bring forward spending on public housebuilding to protect jobs and businesses. There are some signs that huge drops in house prices are now being reversed. This recently gave Bovis, another housebuilder, the confidence to ask the city to stump up £60m to fund land acquisitions from distressed sellers. But fresh uncertainty over the housing market was triggered today by Revenue & Customs UK figures which showed that house sales fell in August from July, the first drop this year. Figures from HMRC show that 83,000 homes were sold last month, down from 87,000 in July.