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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So that’s where Marsh & Parson star Liza-Jane Kelly went!
Senior industry veteran Liza-Jane Kelly has joined Savills to head up the company’s prime London market sales team just over a year after her shock departure from London agency Marsh & Parsons. She helped grow M&P from a minor operator to one of the capital’s fastest-expanding agents, enlarging it from seven to 27 branches. Kelly led a management buyout of M&P in 2005 with fellow director Peter Rollings, backed by Irish firm Sherry Fitzgerald, growing the company partly through the acquisition of local competitor Vanstons in 2006. But after LSL bought the company in 2011, Kelly unexpectedly left the company to “pursue other career opportunities” in May last year. Before joining M&P she had worked initially for Sherry Fitzgerald in Ireland before moving to London to work for Hamptons International. Kelly has been biding her time, waiting for the ideal opportunity to present itself, and her new role at Savills is one of the most prestigious and challenging within the estate agent industry. “I’m delighted to be joining the team at Savills, a company and brand I have long admired,” she says. Savills reveals she will be working with and evolving existing teams and concentrating on London’s core prime markets…
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Homes4u opens new concept agency
homes4u has opened a flagship concept estate agency in Manchester city centre.
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Chestertons promotes Guy Gittins to MD as group CEO steps down
Upmarket agency Chestertons has revealed a reshuffle at the top after Group CEO Allan Collins stepped down today, 15 months after his appointment, while former Head of Residential Sales Guy Gittins has been promoted to become the UK’s Managing Director. Collins is to become Group Deputy Chairman after being appointed CEO in March last year, replacing Robert Bartlett, following five years spent as Group Chief Financial Officer, and prior to that stints at Savills and cruise firm P&O. One of his last decisions was to return Chestertons’ 32 branches to Zoopla after a three year hiatus during which it listed only with OTM and Rightmove. Guy’s rapid rise Guy Gittins is one of the property industry’s high fliers and his promotion to the top job in the UK after seven years at Chestertons is not a surprise to many who know him. Gittins made his name both within the industry and beyond after working for Savills on the successful launch of the world famous Candy & Candy development One Hyde Park from 2010 onwards, before joining Chestertons in 2012. Before that he worked for cigar-chomping hotelier and developer Peter de Savary. “During the seven years I have worked for Chestertons…
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SpicerHaart strikes ‘guaranteed buyer’ deal with innovative Essex development
SpicerHaart says its part exchange arm is to help up to 251 buyers help sell their homes while they wait for 'self designed' homes to be built.
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Purplebricks told by ad watchdog not to repeat key claims about its fees
Purplebricks has had three complaints against it by Hunters upheld despite originally avoiding this by agreeing to amend its website.
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Knight Frank expands London network
Knight Frank has opened a new sales and lettings office in the Royal Arsenal Riverside development in Woolwich, where Knight Frank is an instructed agent with the developer, Berkeley Homes.
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More smaller agents will ‘dip into’ tenant deposits after fees ban, predicts Romans
The number of independent letting agents who illegally dip into tenant deposits to support their struggling businesses is set to rise, 30-branch South East sales and letting agency Romans has predicted. Its punchy comments are within an unusual blog on its website that likens errant agents to character Walter White in US TV drama Breaking Bad. The agency says that when the Tenant Fees Bill becomes law next year many independent agents will lose a “sizeable chunk” of their income and therefore start looking for ‘short cuts’. “If the recent behaviour of misusing client money is anything to go by, the amount stolen will increase further putting more and more landlords at risk,” the blog says. No agent sets out to be a rogue deposit dipper, Romans argues, but a series of bad decisions leads to it happening. “Whilst watching an episode of Breaking Bad, it suddenly occurred to me, like Walter White, other agents hadn’t started out with bad intentions, they are victims of circumstance,” explains Romans’ Lettings Managing Director, Richard O’Neill (left). “All agents (hopefully) start out with good intentions [and] they want to do the right thing for landlords and tenants alike. However, just like Walter White,…
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Countrywide shares drop by a third in a single day following profit warning
Countrywide shares lost a third of their value in a single day following a largely gloomy update from the company.
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‘We’re not struggling in Australia’, says Purplebricks
Purplebricks claims its business in Australia is doing better than traditional estate agents there despite a declining market.
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Can he turn it around in time? Countrywide profits to be down £20m during first half of this year
The latest trading update by Countrywide reveals sagging profits but signs of recovery programme working at last.
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