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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UBS downgrades Purplebricks amid worries over Oz operation and mounting losses
Investment bank also reckons the hybrid agency will have to ask investors for another £100m to cover losses at Oz and US businesses.
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Countrywide share price drops to historic low after poor first quarter results
The company has blamed continuing weak consumer confidence created by Brexit on its slowly declining revenues.
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Latest lettings industry consolidation revealed by Northwood
Franchise giant reveals branches in Wiltshire and Glasgow have gobbled up rivals as tenant fees ban looms just a month away.
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London lots sell at Symonds & Sampson
The Allendale Centre in Wimborne was overflowing with bidders competing for building plots and renovation projects at Symonds & Sampson’s first auction of the year in March.
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LSL’s branch bloodbath drives down revenues by 9.3% during first quarter
LSL has revealed that the cull of more than half of its network of Your Move and Reeds Rains branches earlier this year helped drive down revenue at the two businesses by over 9%. The company says this is ‘slightly better’ than it had expected following the reduction of directly-owned branches from 308 to 144. LSL’s announcement is made within its results for the first quarter of the year and, despite claiming that its branch reduction is going better than expected, overall revenue at LSL’s estate agency business reduced by 8.5% to £39.2 million. The drop in both sales and lettings revenue at Your Move and Reeds Rains has been blamed on both ‘soft market conditions’ and the reduction of its branch network. Other highlights from its most recent trading update include a 10% reduction in revenues at its upmarket London agency Marsh & Parsons. Strong performances Despite lower income from its estate agency businesses, the company’s overall performance held steady. Group revenue increased by 5.7% helped by strong performances at its surveying and financial services companies. Surveying did particularly well where revenues jumped by 40% during the first quarter of the year. “We continue to remain cautious on the…
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Estate agency? A child could do it, claims Channel 4 programme
Some people claim being an estate agent is child’s play, but a Channel 4 series set to start this week is to discover whether that’s true. Called When I Grow Up and starting this Thursday, it follows a group of primary school children aged between seven and nine years old who are put to work running parts of three different businesses including a branch of estate agency chain Hunters. This week the children are let loose on Hello! Magazine; the week after that they help run the Montezuma chocolate factory; and the final programme features six kids working at Hunters as sales agents. The programme, which was shot over six days and required the children to work for four hours a day, includes training sessions with Hunters’ CEO Glynis Frew on how to sell property. The hour-long episode of the show featuring Frew makes for hilarious viewing, particularly because she and her staff take the children and their ideas deadly seriously despite their sometimes off-the-wall suggestions. The show’s producers claim When I Grow Up is more than just light entertainment and is designed to show how children from all kinds of backgrounds can have their attitudes changed through exposure to…
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Lancashire estate agent faces social media storm over ‘dreadful’ tweets
An estate agent in Lancashire has been banned from his football team’s home ground after posting an ‘obscene series of tweets’ about the death of Cardiff player Emiliano Sala from a Twitter account linked to his business. 36-year-old Gary Kay, who runs an estate agency in Burnley, used his Twitter account following a match between Burnley FC and Cardiff FC to mock Sala’s death, saying “We all live in a Sala submarine…. the latest number 1 in Cardiff”. The 28-year-old Argentinian player died in January when the Piper PA-46 Malibu light aircraft he was travelling in crashed into the sea north of Guernsey, killing both him and the pilot. The comments enraged many on the social media platform including Welsh politician Neil McEvoy who said he had reported “this dreadful abuse” to the Football Association, and Kay was interviewed voluntarily by Lancashire police. Zero tolerance Officials at Burnley FC, which is in the Premiership, have now said that Kay is banned from its Turf Moor ground (pictured, above) pending the outcome of the police investigation and that it had a “strict zero tolerance policy to any racial or discriminatory behaviour” by fans. Following the tweets, Kay subsequently said on Twitter…
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Rising star of lettings industry makes his next move
A former Foxtons negotiator who returned to his home country of Scotland to work his way up the career ladder has taken over the lettings business of his family’s firm. Riccardo Giovanacci (above, left) now lists himself as Managing Director and owner of Newton Lettings based in Glasgow and says he wants to expand the brand across Scotland. This includes plans to open an office in Edinburgh and to use technology to increase its potential customer base. “There is a vibrant market out there for rented property and I see that only increasing in the future,” he says. “We want to have our new Edinburgh office up and running within the next two years.” Newton Lettings is trading with the agreement of its parent company Newton Property Management, which has sold its 500-property portfolio, which includes some 350 landlords, to Mr Giovanacci’s venture. Family affair Newton Property Management was established by William (above, middle), who is no longer a director, and Stephen O’Neil (above, right) in 2001 and offers both property management (or factoring) and lettings services from three branches run by over 20 staff. Stephen O’Neil is Giovanacci’s uncle and before going to London his young family protégé worked…
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Northwood Chester’s ‘most exciting acquisition’
Northwood Chester has completed on the acquisition of Humphreys of Chester, one of the most reputable estate agencies in the area.
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Part of a trend? 21-year-old Suffolk independent estate agency shuts up shop
Director Clive Robinson says company could have continued but he wants to diversity 'off the high street' into sales and home improvement consultancy.
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