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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Countrywide to refashion hybrid offering and beef up lettings
Countrywide’s plan to turn its business around has been revealed, including the company’s intention to relaunch its hybrid online offering. As part of its ‘back to basics’ plan, the company also says it intends to begin recruiting again at a local level and wants to revive its lettings business. “We are focused on restoring lettings capability back at regional, area and branch level and in our customer service centres,” the company says. “We believe that continued growth in the rentals market provides huge opportunity for operators who deliver the highest levels of compliance and service to landlords and tenants.” Other changes include plans to decentralise its operations, give branches more information to help them measure their performance against local competitors and relaunch its ‘hybrid’ online offering. Online players “Previous management believed that it too should offer a digital fixed fee proposition in order to compete with the online players,” the company says. “The resulting hybrid digital fee proposition, however, led to confusion for our customers who expected to receive a full service at a reduced fee.” The other key new focus for Countrywide will be to restore its revenue pipeline of ancillary income from services such as conveyancing and mortgages,…
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Average salary in property is now £58,633 and grew 12% last year, it is claimed
A salary poll of property professionals has revealed that pay rises for qualified estate agents are currently at a ten-year high and that the gender pay gap is narrowing among junior agents, but still shockingly wide at the top. These claims are made by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) after it canvassed 7,000 professionals across all sectors of the property industry including sales and lettings agents, valuers and block managers. RICS says that across the industry the average salary for its members grew by 12% or £6,271 last year – when total remuneration packages are taken into account – to an average of £58,633. The extra cash is being spread across all regions of the UK, too, with Northern Ireland enjoying the steepest pay rises, followed by London and the South East. Bonuses levels increased last year too and now average £15,703, says RICS. The RICS & Macdonald Salary Survey also looked at the gender pay gap within the industry. Last year female property professionals under 26 years old were paid 3.5% less than their male counterparts, but overall the gender pay gap across the industry is 30%. The property sector also appears to be in relatively rude…
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Landwood’s new auction venture
A North West firm of chartered surveyors is launching Landwood Property Auctions, backed by the Landwood Group, with plans to host a series of auctions – traditional or online...
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Revealed: why Countrywide sales and lettings went awry during Platt years
Countrywide has revealed that it will take three years to turn the business around following the departure of Alison Platt in January, and also detailed how and why she left. During the final months of last year Countrywide Executive Chairman Peter Long carried out a review of why its sales and lettings business had lost so much market share and profitability since 2015. He discovered that the strategy adopted by the company to treat sales and lettings as a single retail business failed to appreciate that they are really separate entities each with different characteristics and customer bases requiring separate expertise. Long also found that the ‘one size fits all’ approach the company had adopted led to a reduction in entrepreneurial culture and that branch managers lost the autonomy to recruit and promote colleagues or develop their businesses to fit local conditions. Reducing closure costs Countrywide has also published how much its ongoing cost reduction and closures programme cost last year. Its preliminary results, which come ahead of its full Annual Report later this month, show that it spent £4.4 million on redundancies and changing the leadership structure and £1.65 million on consultants to manage costs and get “strategic initiatives”…
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‘Come back to us’, Countrywide’s Peter Long asks departed talent as profits sink
Countrywide’s Executive Chairman Peter Long (pictured, above) has called for the senior figures who left the business during the Alison Platt years to return to the company as the company reveals its latest figures. Overall income reduced by 9% during 2017 and profits dropped by 23%, driven by a poorly-performing sales and lettings where profits fell by 45% from £48.4 million in 2016 to £26.4 million last year. This is a third year in a row the results from its core branch network have been poor. Countrywide’s mortgage business, which is highly dependent on its pipeline from the branches, also generated less profit last year, down from £22.7 million to £19.7 million. But one area of the business doing well is its B2B services operation. Profits increased by 13% to £35.6 million driven by surveying, and its commercial business outfit Lambert Smith Hampton. The 2017 results also reveal that although the company made an underlying profit of £19.5 million during 2017, nearly half that of 2016, it has reported a loss of £208.1 million after taking a £225.9 million hit for exception items. The company says it will not pay a dividend for 2017. In response to the figures, Countrywide…
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Purplebricks Australia fined £11,200 after regulator receives complaints about its fixed fees
Purplebricks Australia has been fined AU$20,000 (£11,200) by the Queensland Office of Fair Trading (OFT) following complaints that it had misled customers about its fixed-fee offering, and not followed accounting and other business rules. OFT says it received “several complaints” about misleading claims both on Purplebricks’ website and within advertising. In a similar way that some consumers and agents complain about Purplebricks in the UK, it was claimed that Purplebricks was not clear that its fees were charged whether a property is sold or not. “Between November 2016 and June 2017, Purplebricks Australia Pty Ltd, entered into agreements with consumers who were not made aware of the terms of the fees charged,” a statement from the Queensland Office of Fair Trading says. “Consumers were also misled about additional services offered by Purplebricks, despite the agency advertising ‘low, fixed fees’ for their services when selling property. “Purplebricks [also] failed to fulfil some of its regulatory obligations about use of appropriate accounts software, use of a non-Queensland bank account and notification of substitute licensees and other places of business.” In a statement to Australian website Financial Review, Purplebricks’ CEO in Australia, Ryan Dinsdale (pictured, above), said his company had worked with the…
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Beresfords branches out in Brentwood
Beresfords, the award-winning estate agent has a new branch taking pride of place in Brentwood’s bustling High Street, fitted with Beresfords’ freshest shop-fit design and latest marketing materials.
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Will most agents soon be listing on all three property portals?
Franchising corporate giant Hunters is the latest large estate agency group to sign up to all three property portals after confirming it had begun listing its properties via OnTheMarket (OTM). The company was one of several key industry brands to sign up to the portal last last year for a long-term deal on condition OTM successfully floated on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market. Before the flotation OTM said it would drop its controversial ‘one other portal rule’ once its shares had been listed. This has prompted an increasing number of agents, therefore, to sign with all three portals. Like Hunters, which has 200 franchised branches across the UK, this includes Chancellors and Douglas & Gordon, with more expected to follow soon. “We are pleased to be able to offer this huge benefit to our customers who can rest assured that with Hunters, their properties will be marketed to the widest possible audience,” says Glynis Frew, Hunters’ CEO (pictured, left). “Furthermore, as a franchisor, we are also delighted that this deal brings significant advantages to our 200 plus network of branches, who are very enthusiastic and positive about the news. “This is a fantastic addition to our service offering that…
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LSL reveals profits up by 8% and two more digital investments
Estate agency corporate LSL boosted its performance last year with a £5.6 million windfall from the sale of its shares in the Guild of Professional Estate Agents, its preliminary results reveal, lifting underlying profits by 8%. This ‘exception gain’ plus increased revenue from its branch network including a 10% lettings revenue increase at flagship brand Marsh & Parsons, and very strong results from its mortgage business, helped make 2017 a good year for the company. Its performance, which has been achieved during a difficult sales market, has also been delivered despite 2016’s stellar results, which were boosted by a £32.9 million windfall from the sale of ZPG shares. Last year it also spend £20 million spent on its investment in hybrid agency YOPA in September and, after its strategic review, two other interesting investments. This includes an undisclosed sum in Zero Deposit, the Jon Notley-led alternative deposits model, and £65,000 invested in an online mortgage broker called Property Master. “The Group delivered a robust financial performance given the subdued market conditions,” says Chairman Simon Embley (pictured, left). “I am pleased that the business delivered underlying operating profit growth in both the Estate Agency and Surveying Divisions.” LSL is much loved…
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Snow debate about the timing… SpicerHaart send staff on Alpine driving course just before storm Emma
Thursday and Friday last week were quiet days for many agents as viewings, appraisals and tenant check-ins proved difficult to get to as the beast from the east roared in. But one set of 24 SpicerHaart agents will have had fewer excuses than most for cancelling appointments, as they had recently completed a course in the Austrian alps designed to sharped up their snow and ice driving skills. The top-performing agents from several of the company’s agencies including haart, Chewton Rose, Felicity J Lord, Darlows and Haybrook were in Austria three weeks ago on a glacier near the ski resort of Sölden. It’s some 3,000 metres above sea level and the highest driver training camp of its kind in the world. The course, which was provided by BMW, included instruction on how to avoid skidding into walls of ice, breaking and steering on snow, as well as avoiding steep drops down the mountainside.4 The trip was part of SpicerHaart’s ongoing programme of taking its brightest stars on foreign jaunts. “It was a brilliant trip, absolutely fantastic [and] we all now know how to drive properly in the snow,” said Mel Mills (pictured, above), Branch Manager of haart in Bury St…
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