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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Former MD of troubled estate agency Humberts joins presidential team of NAEA
The NAEA and ARLA have both ushered in their new presidential teams following the Propertymark annual general meeting and dinner at London’s Savoy hotel on Friday, including the appointment of Ian Westerling (pictured, right) as Vice President of NAEA. Ian recently stepped down as Managing Director of Humberts after the ailing firm was sold to a travel company, and now holds a ‘special projects’ role at the company. He is joined by Mark Bentley (pictured, left) of Birmingham agency Paul Carr who replaces outgoing President Katie Griffin, and Lauren Scott of Whitley Bay firm Trading Places (pictured, below) who is now President Elect. As well as looking forward to meeting the fellow member agents, Mark says he also wants to work “with the Propertymark board in encouraging the government to move forward with their indicated intention to look to regulate the sector and to find a way to speed up the house buying and selling process”. ARLA ARLA’s new team at the top is Peter Savage (pictured, left), who is now the organisation’s president, replacing Sally Lawson. Peter has been ARLA president before during 2015/16 and is chairman of Oxfordshire lettings agency Simplify Housing, the website for which was…
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Glut of properties for sale building up in London and South, says Rightmove
Rightmove reckons homes are taking longer to sell in London and the South while the north and Wales remain active.
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Purplebricks USA gambles on expansion into Las Vegas and Phoenix
Hybrid agency Purplebricks USA has set up shop in two more cities within America including Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas.
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Auction House reports best April in it’s history!
Auction House is reporting the highest number of April sales in the group’s 11 year history.
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Blurring of lines between traditional and online operations prompts ASA complaint about agent
Agency Howard Cundey agrees to remove references to Zoopla on its website after complaint to watchdog despite still being a listing agent on the portal.
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Winkworth franchising grows
Winkworth’s two new offices in Banstead, Surrey and Poringland, Norfolk, are now open for business.
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How the once mighty HAS fallen: Foxtons share price drops to all-time low of just 62p
The share price of Foxtons, once lauded as the fastest-growing and most successful estate agency in the UK, yesterday sunk to an all-time low of 62p, only 3p shy of the sector’s lowest-value stock, Hunters. Foxtons’ shares have been haemorrhaging value since early April this year following a series of unremittingly gloomy trading updates that have revealed dramatic year-on-year plummets in profits and turnover. Its most recent update last month revealed that market conditions in the capital remained “very challenging”. Group revenues for the first three months of 2018 were £24.5 million, down from £28.7 million during the same period the year before. All parts of its business including sales, lettings and mortgage lending saw dropping revenues. This has led to many City investors ditching the company’s shares, which peaked in March 2014 at £3.89 when the company held an unassailable and increasingly dominant position in what was then a booming London market. foxtons share price Its current share price represents an 86% reduction from this peak following yesterday’s 4% drop in its share price. It’s been a bad few weeks for the company. Last month a national newspaper ran an unflattering story about a landlord’s experience with two nightmare…
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Over 60% of tenants offered insurance-based rental deposits take it up
Over sixty percent of tenants offered an insurance rather than cash-based rental deposit scheme at one of London’s largest new-build rental apartment developments have chosen to do so, it has been claimed. Criterion Capital, one of the UK’s largest Built-to-Rent operators and a major client of letting agent the Acorn Group, has made the claim for the first phase of its Delta Point scheme in Croydon, which eventually will bring 404 rental units to the market. The service is being provided by Zero Deposit, the Stevenage-based proptech firm co-founded by Jon Notley. “There is no question that Zero Deposit is helping to make our properties more attractive to potential tenants, speeding up the process and resulting in happier tenants when they move in,” says Karl Elliott, Head of Portfolio at Criterion Capital. Rental deposit Acorn Group, which includes four agent brands – Langford Russell, John Payne, Unique and Acorn – is one of South East London’s larger agency groups and has a total of 31 offices. All of these have now rolled out the Zero Deposit product. The agency was one of the four industry big hitters to give Zero Deposit its backing in February alongside Connells, LSL and Knight Frank.…
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Tenant creditworthiness platform CreditLadder passes 1,000-branch mark
Rental payment recognition platform CreditLadder says it now has over 1,000 letting agent branches who have tenants on the service, making it the most widely available in the UK’s rapidly growing market for creditworthiness improvement, it claims. Started up in 2016 and based in London, until recently CreditLadder was alone in the private rented sector but it’s been joined by several competitors since after, in December 2017, HM Treasury announced a £2 million Rent Recognition Challenge to help kickstart innovation within the creditworthiness sector. These include Bud, Canopy, MoveMe and RentalStep, all of which are now involved in a feisty battle for market share, and a slice of the £2 million government funding. As The Negotiator reported last month, Canopy recently signed a deal with the John Lewis Partnership to help its employees improve their credit scores. Rent default Many of these services, including CreditLadder, claim their service helps letting agents differentiate themselves in crowded rental markets, enables agents to offer landlords a ‘value add’ to their service, and that tenants using them are less likely to default on their rent. This helps agents and landlords attract more reliable renters, it is claimed. “We’ve always believed good behaviour should…
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Stunning sea view suits Swiss bidder
A property which had been in the same family ownership for over 50 years has sold at Network Auctions’ April sale for £225,000 to a bidder who flew over from Switzerland specifically to bid on the lot.
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