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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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…
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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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Purplebricks share price continues downward spiral despite Axel Springer deal
Yesterday’s announcement by Purplebricks that German publisher Axel Springer is to invest £125 million in the business has failed to impress the City, dealing in its shares over the past 24 hours suggest. Purplebricks share price slid by 10% yesterday following the announcement and this has continued today, with its share price dipping to £2.73p at one point this morning. This is an ongoing trend, though. The company has seen its share price lose a third of its value over the past four weeks and 45% of its value since it peaked in July last year at £5.13. One reason for the downturn can be laid at the door of the current worries over a looming trade war between the US and the UK, as well as a febrile atmosphere among investors around the world as the EU and Russia sabre rattle. Directors cash in But the fact that many of Purplebricks’ senior team including founding brothers Michael and Kenny Bruce have cashed in some of their shares in the Axel Springer deal have also been a source of concern for investors – who don’t like to see directors or key senior people cashing in so early in a company’s…
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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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OnTheMarket founding agent Chestertons signs with ZPG
Chestertons, one of the founding agents of property portal OnTheMarket (OTM) and one of London’s largest branch networks, has returned to Zoopla after a three-year hiatus. Its 32 branches have started listing on ZPG’s two websites with immediate effect as well as continuing to appear on Rightmove and OTM. A spokesperson from OnTheMarket said: “”Chestertons remains a valued and supportive estate agent customer of, and shareholder in, OnTheMarket and indeed has recently chosen to sign a new 5-year listing agreement with us.” Chestertons is one of a growing number of agents now listing on all three platforms after OTM lifted its ‘one other portal rule’ following its listing on the AIM stock market. “We’re excited to be returning to ZPG and having all of Chestertons properties listed on all four of the UK’s main property websites, which will benefit both our customers and our business,” says Allan Collins, CEO of Chestertons. The company, which founded OTM alongside several other high-profile agents including Knight Frank and Savills, is not the only agent to have signed up with or returned to ZPG recently. The portal says a flurry of branches have signed a listings agreement with it in recent weeks including eight…
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Purplebricks blames slow start to Spring market on weather, training and economy
Purplebricks has hit its first purple patch after it was revealed today that group revenues for the financial year are likely to be 5% lower than its target of £98 million. In a statement released this morning, the company says a difficult few weeks during late February and early March are to blame for the drop in performance, although Purplebricks says overall group cashflow is on track to be double that of last year’s, helped by good performances from its US and Australian operations. It blames the slowdown on “macro issues” within the economy – presumably the ongoing Brexit jitters – plus the ‘Beast from the East’ storm and the fact that 10% of its LPEs were withdrawn from the market for a training course during late February and early March. These factors drove down sales instructions by 17% during the first three weeks of this month year-on-year, Purplebricks reveals. New instructions “While Purplebricks has experienced strong growth in its UK division to date and it continues to build market share in both the total estate agency market and hybrid estate agency sector in the UK, it has experienced lower than expected levels of new instructions for the Company during…
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