Winkworth has revealed that the Stamp Duty ‘cliff face’ on April 1^st helped drive a 25% uplift in network sales revenue for the business compared to the same period last year.

The company also expects its 2025 profits to total £2.6 million, up 10% year on year.

This is an improvement on its performance last year, during which sales revenue increased by 18% to £33 million, its publicly-available accounts show.

Winkworth’s latest results, which cover the first six months of the year, reveal a particularly strong March for sales, helped by the rush among many first time buyers to complete before Stamp Duty rates increased.

Nevertheless, Winkworth says interest among all buyers remained strong after this deadline, helping mitigate the ‘slump’ that many lther firms reported earlier this year.

Dominic Agace, Chief Executive, Winkworth, tells The Neg: “With some exciting new talent having joined the network in H2 2024 and H1 2025, and more recruits planned in the months ahead, I’m pleased to see the positive impact this is having on our business.

“Combined with the ongoing investment that we make in the platform and network to optimise the success of our franchisees, this has enabled 21 more offices to be ranked in the top three in their local market in the last ten years.

“Now that our recent joiners are in place, we see this trend set to continue. Our goal remains to provide a platform that gives all franchisees the opportunity to rank top 3 by market share, a position which we believe will enable them to run successful and profitable businesses throughout the property cycle.”

Lettings lull

But the firm’s lettings activity has not been so buoyant with lettings activity across its network of 90 offices rising by just 3%, which have increased by three during the period via cold starts, along with three branches being resold.

Although not mentioned this year, in 2024 the company said lettings had been affected directly by an increasing number of landlords quitting the market, largely due to ‘higher costs’.But the improved performance overall at the firm is good news for its institutional and personal shareholders, who will receive a dividend of 3.3p per share.

This includes the Winkworth chairman Simon Agace, who holds over five million of the company’s shares, along with five other ‘substantial shareholders’.