Welsh estate agency Peter Alan has laid the blame for slumping profits last year firmly at the door of former PM Liz Truss.

The company, which is owned by Connells Group, says its pre-tax profit last year was £2.4 million, down from £3.3 million in 2021.

It saw sales plummet 19% as a result of the Mini Budget despite a fall of only 1% in instructions. Lettings income though rose 5%.

Knock-on effect

“At the end of September when the mini-budget was announced, within days the knock on effect to the housing market was significant,” the directors say in the annual report.

“Customer confidence was heavily affected following further hikes in the BoE interest rates.

“This naturally drove higher mortgage rates, which was a step change for so many current and potential future borrowers who were also living with the current cost of living crisis.”

Upbeat

Peter Alan, which has more than 30 branches in South Wales, says commentators speculating on house prices added to the problems. “This affected our transaction levels for the entirety of quarter 4 and our income until year end.”

But the company is much more upbeat about its prospects this year.

“The housing market has started 2023 off in far better shape than it closed off the year in quarter 4 2022.

“We entered 2023 with our opening pipeline being 16% higher”

“This is based on our current performance and data from two leading UK property portals (Rightmove and Zoopla),” it says.

“We entered 2023 with our opening pipeline being 16% higher than it was in the last ‘normal’ trading year of 2019.”