The week's events in Salford provide a commentary on the whole of the property market. It is a tale of the differing fortunes of developers - in which Coronation Street makes a guest appearance.

But before southerners start forming clichéd ideas of the North, they should know more about Salford, Manchester's nearest neighbour and its so-called Right Bank - nowadays not that gritty or industrial but a 21st-century high-rise town. One source calls it an “outstanding location that boasts a prestigious waterside environment with a wealth of leisure, shopping and cultural attractions”.

This source is City Lofts, a developer whose scheme of 203 apartments in Salford was this week put - quietly - into receivership, along with others in its portfolio. As Bricks and Mortar went to press, this news did not appear on the company's website; the local sales office was also in the dark about the news.

City Lofts makes much of its links with Conran Design. But despite this, its apartments seem to have failed to sell because are they on the small side. The cash-laden buy-to-let investors who are stepping up their bulk buying of flats may be unconcerned by this feature, especially as they can now get discounts of 30 per cent, according to Hamptons, the estate agents.

But buyers of more modest means are deterred, especially in light of the latest spike in the two-year interbank swap rate, now 6.25 per cent, up from around 4.75 per cent in January.

This is the rate used by banks to price the most popular type of mortgage, the two-year fix. Fionnuala Earley, Nationwide's chief economist, cites this increase as the reason for her more downbeat assessment of market.

At least Taylor Wimpey, another of the week's construction industry casualties, published the details of its difficulties on the front page of its website. This is to Wimpey's credit - something that the group is finding is in short supply, its banks being unwilling to extend more of it in the current financial climate.

Wimpey claims that Fusion Manchester, its Salford development, is 95 per cent sold, something of a miracle given its size. The living room in the two-bedroom apartment is a matchbox-like 14ft 4in by 12ft 3in.

By contrast the living room in a two-bedroom house in Chimney Pot Park, another development in Salford, is 23ft by 11ft 11in, one of the reasons why this refurbishment of a collection of Victorian terraced streets yesterday won Britain's top housing design award. In the 1970s, Chimney Pot Park's rooftops played the role of Coronation Street in the soap opera's opening credits. In 2002, the terraces were - dramatically - rescued from demolition by the developer Urban Splash.

The final phase of the development becomes available in October, but no completed houses currently remain unsold, once more highlighting the trend that extends from Salford to Surrey of the flight to quality.

Stamp of approval

The Government did not listen to calls for the reform of stamp duty on property during the boom. The £6.45billion earned from this in the 2006-07 tax year may have had played a part in this. Cynics will say it is even less likely to make the tax more fair for first time-buyers during a downturn, as it cannot afford a further cut in revenue. The drop of 25 per cent that would be caused by the changes suggested by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) probably seems impossible to contemplate.

But as ministers seem unable to do anything else to aid the housing market - the £50 billion bail out of the banks did not lower mortgage rates by even one iota - it should still consider taking the hit on stamp duty.

The RICS proposals would remove the barriers facing most homebuyers climbing on to or moving further up the ladder. Buyers of deluxe properties would pay more, but the purchaser of a £250,000 home who currently faces a £7,500 stamp duty bill would see this fall to £2,500.

If nothing else, adopting this measure would be cheaper than bestowing more cash on banks whose response to the last handout was to turn away even more creditworthy borrowers.

White elephant?

White's City is for sale. No, not that White City in West London, the site of a massive shopping centre to open in the autumn, but White's City, New Mexico, which has fewer retail outlets but does boast the only water source in a 20-mile area.

This desert municipality, founded in the 1920s by CharlieF.White, a homesteader, has motels, an opera house and a post office. It stands at the entrance to Carlsbad Caverns National Park, home to 16 different species of bat. Higgenbotham, the auctioneers, has set no minimum bid price.

The reason for this seems not to be the troubled US real estate market, but the problem in estimating the value of a whole city, especially one with such attractions as the Whittlin' Cowboy's Ranch and a museum with 7,000-year-old mummies.

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