Agencies & People
News covering the businesses, activities, people and personalities in estate agency and letting agency and wider residential property industry.
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All we hear is Radio HaHa
Inspired by ‘Slow Radio’, SpareRoom has launched Radio Haha: a six-hour podcast featuring nothing but the sounds of people laughing. • Radio Haha is designed to highlight the importance of laughter in a happy flatshare • 85% of housemates believe laughter is important for a happy flatshare • 87% of SpareRoom ads that mention laughter have a living room, demonstrating the importance of communal spaces in creating happy houses • Laughter has real health benefits, helping alleviate stressful emotions and drawing people closer together • Radio Haha is available to stream and download, click here It’s said that laughter is the best medicine and that’s especially true when it comes to flatshares. In fact, the overwhelming majority of housemates , 85% (1) believe that laughter is important for a happy flatshare. What’s more, science has shown that laughter can create a positive emotional climate in groups of people. (2) Today, to highlight the importance of laughter in the making of happy house shares, SpareRoom has taken inspiration from the worlds of slow radio and ASMR* by launching Radio Haha: an epic six-hour podcast that consists of nothing but the sounds of people laughing. …when it comes to a house share,…
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Gender pay gap: Savills says women are paid 37% less than men within its UK operation
Savills has become the first UK estate agent to break cover and publish its gender pay gap data under the government’s new reporting requirements. From this year, any organisation with more than 250 employees is required by law to report and publish their gender pay gap data by 5th April each year. Excluding its City trading arm, the median gender pay gap at Savills is currently 37% while the median bonus gap is 69%. And more men than women receive bonuses in the UK – 88% of male employees compared to 80% of female ones. This, CEO Mark Ridley (pictured, left) says, is largely down to the industry’s track record, which has “historically attracted fewer women than men, with the result that there are now more men than women at a senior level”. “Addressing this imbalance is a key focus for Savills UK and we believe that we have made significant progress over the last few years to improve diversity in our business.” One key achievement for the company is its ‘return to work coaching programme’ which has seen the ratio of women returning to Savills after maternity leave increase from 10% to 95% since 2015. Mark also says its…
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Foxtons results reveal tanking profits but confident dismissal of online competitors
Foxtons has revealed its worse full-year results since 2013 including profits before tax which tanked by 65% year-on-year. Its Annual Report and Accounts for 2017 also reveal that revenue decreased by 11.4% and earnings per share by 67%, while its margin dropped to 12.8%, down from over 35% in 2013. That year its profits before tax were £38.9 million, but in 2017 were just £6.5 million. Despite its poor results, both its CEO Nic Budden and CFO Mark Berry received bonuses, although they were lower than in 2016. Budden (pictured, left) was paid a package worth £914,000 last year including a bonus of £218,000 while Berry was paid £490,000 including a bonus of £153,000. Foxtons results document blames the poor performance squarely on its sales operation, which Foxtons says has been battered by the sluggish property markets inside the M25/London area. Sales revenue fell by 23% year-on-year during 2017. This, it says, is largely due to a lack of confidence among buyers and vendors caused by the ongoing Brexit process. But Foxtons also says the 2016 changes to Stamp Duty continue to depress volumes. But unlike most of its competitors, Foxtons continues to focus on developing its own in-house online…
Read More » Purplebricks launches in New York three months ahead of schedule
Purplebricks has launched its platform in New York three months ahead of schedule to catch the city’s Spring market, its US CEO Eric Eckardt has revealed. The company had been due to launch there in June but the pressing need to catch the busiest months of the year meant the operation has been launched just ten weeks after indicating it had the most high-profile and largest city in the US within its sights, and seven months after entering the US market. In January the company set up offices in Midtown Manhattan, its first foray into the crowded jungle that is America’s East Coast property market. Today’s news means Purplebricks is now operating within the world’s largest urban landmass both by area and population. The hybrid agent now has access to a market covering 31 counties, 7.4 million households and 20 million people. “With higher-than-average rates of commission and transaction volumes, New York was the natural first move on the East Coast for Purplebricks,” Chief Executive Michael Bruce (left) said recently. It’s referred to locally as the Tri-State Area, which includes the city of New York, Long Island and the Mid and Lower Hudson Valley but also taking in five nearby…
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Fox & Sons celebrates 150 years
Fox & Sons estate agency celebrates its 150th anniversary with a year of special events.
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Network Auctions partner agents’ £100,000 commission
Network Auctions’ London auction on 22nd February brought the total raised in partner agent commission fees to over £100,000 in the last month...
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People are moving home half as often during their lives than ten years ago, claims Savills
The financial crisis of 2008 still casts a long shadow over the UK property market and that includes a halving in the number of times people move home during their lives, research by Savills has highlighted. Its examination of home moves reveals that the average has dropped from 3.6 times to 1.8 times per family since the crash, a figure that stubbornly refuses to budge. In comments made to the BBC this morning, Savills’ Head of Research Lucian Cook suggests that unless people are enabled to move house more often, there is little point helping first time buyers on to the first rung of the property ladder. The areas where people are moving the most are in Wandsworth, Basingstoke and Deane, Norwich, Rushmoor, Lambeth, Corby, Swindon, Aylesbury Vale, South Norfolk and Bracknell Forest. The destinations where people are staying put the most include Pembrokeshire, Harrow, Ceredigion, Blaenau Gwent, Brent, Wolverhampton, Isle of Anglesey, Sefton, Newham and Redbridge. “Those not trading up are the forgotten people of the housing market,” Lucian Cook told the BBC. Savills categorises housing markets in the UK into three types. These are areas where house prices are stagnant and don’t produce the equity gains people need…
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Inquest hears how Chancellors chairman James Scott-Lee was killed by ‘fidgety’ horses
An inquest into the tragic death of James Scott-Lee, the much-respected Chairman of estate agency group Chancellors, has heard how the 66-year-old was killed by his own horses within the stables of his estate in the village of Kirtlington, Oxfordshire on October 27th last year. James, who had headed up Chancellors Group since the 1990s and was a very keen horse and carriage enthusiast, had been out for a seven-mile drive with his driver and a friend and, after returning to his stables, had helped unhook the horses from the vehicle. The inquest was told that one of the horses lunged forward, knocking him over and, when the second horse also became agitated, the carriage was subsequently ridden over him. James remained conscious and initially complained only of pains in his shoulder and tingling in his hands but after being taken by ambulance to the John Radcliffe Hospital outside Oxford, scans revealed multiple fractures to his ribs and he was kept in for observation. His condition deteriorated and it was later discovered that he had suffered a broken vertebrae and a stroke. James was then rushed to a specialist unit at St George’s Hospital in South London where his family…
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Spicerhart signs up 100 branches with deposits alternative service Flatfair
Agency group Spicerhaart has signed up with smartphone-based deposits alternative Flatfair and will now offer the service via the company’s 100 lettings branches to its 15,000 landlords. Instead of taking a deposit, tenants pay a ‘membership fee’ equivalent to one week’s rent while landlords are covered for up to 12 weeks’ worth of rent. Tenants are still liable for any damages to the property and unpaid rent, sums that Flatfair recovers itself on behalf of the landlord. Benefits claimed by Flatfair,which is not an insurance-based product unlike many of its competitors, include faster damage payouts, access to a pool of more reliable tenants via its tenant scoring system, faster lettings, lower agent costs and fewer lengthy voids. “Many landlords are concerned that their property is not sufficiently protected by a tenancy deposit, particularly true in the light of the upcoming deposit-cap, and that lengthy void periods and penalties eat away at their rental yield,” says Spicerhaart’s Lettings Development Director Paul Sloan (left). “We were highly impressed with Flatfair’s innovative technology and how easy the platform was to use. We’re confident it’ll mean not only lower up-front costs for tenants but also help make our landlords’ properties more appealing. Flatfair, which…
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