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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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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Calling Minister: auction Local Authority plots!
Rory Daly, CEO, SDL Auctions, is pleased that the Housing Secretary is examining all potential development land in public ownership...
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Emson’s strong start to 2018
Clive Emson Auctioneers sold land and property worth £17 million at its February sale, with an 85 per cent sale rate after cataloguing 133 lots.
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John D Wood scrapes in to help Londoners survive the Beast from the East
Few agents will have considered making promotional capital from the week’s Beast from the East storm, but London agency John D Wood has, and should get this year’s award for quick thinking. The company’s branch in the SW London suburb of Wandsworth yesterday morning decided to hand out ice scrapers to cars parked on streets within its patch, garnering praise from locals on social media. Branch employees were up at 7.30am distributing the scrapers, which came with a note saying: “Please find your complimentary ice scraper on your bonnet this morning. “We wanted to reach out to our closest neighbours and leave you a small token to hopefully come to your aid on this very cold morning!”. Beast from the east Branch manager James Wright (pictured, below) and a colleague spent an hour or so placing the unusual ‘direct mail’ onto the windscreens of 250 cars on six streets around its branch in central Wandsworth. “We do the usual door drops and occasionally we distribute local market insight reports as flyers at the train station, but this is first time we’ve done this,” he says. “To be honest, we’d had the ice scrapers sitting around gathering dust for some time…
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Hybrid estate agent who works from home takes over high street competitor
A glimpse of the industry’s future has been revealed after a Staffordshire estate agent who works from home with his two sons today announced he has bought a high street competitor. Chris Walthall (pictured, above), who set up a Ewemove franchise covering Leek and Hanley in Staffordshire four years ago, runs it with his son and fellow director Dan as well as another son, Conor. “I’ve operated the business from my home since 2014 and have a dedicated office space where I can have clients round and focus on my day-to-day work,” he says. The trio’s business, which Ewemove gathers together with other franchisees to create ‘Ewemove Staffordshire’ on Rightmove, offers both a sales and lettings service and, Ewemove claims, is now one of its most successful branches. Chris, like an increasing number of franchisees across the industry, had no experience of sales or lettings before acquiring the franchise, having previously been a salesperson in other sectors. But, although his family’s business is based from home, Chris has now bought a high street branch in Biddulph, to the north of Hanley, previously operated by a franchisee from Ewemove’s parent company Martin & Co (pictured, above). Its former owners will be…
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Four Belvoir letting agents hoover up 1,350 properties in £2m deal
Many larger lettings agents have been buying up the portfolios of smaller localised rivals in recent months as the private rental sector has become tougher, and the latest to report such a move is Belvoir. Four of its franchisee have now completed portfolio acquisitions with collective revenues of £2 million a year, adding 1,335 properties to its property management tally in Hitchin/Welwyn Garden City/St Albans, Derby West, Hendon and Corby. But the largest of the portfolio purchases has been completed by its Hitchin/Welwyn Garden City franchisee. The deal includes 624 managed rental properties in Welwyn Garden City and St Albans with a total revenue of £1 million a year, adding fees revenues to Belvoir’s head office of £400,00 over the next six years. This deal was funded by the local Belvoir franchisees own sources of finance, and is both a portfolio and territorial expansion for it, helping the franchisee break into the lucrative St Albans rental market. The other three portfolio acquisitions add another £1 million a year the franchisees revenues, helped by a £193,000 cash injection by the Belvoir head office. Belvoir UK’s keenness to help franchisees hoover up portfolios with its ‘Assisted Acquisitions’ programme is clear from the financials.;…
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Connells results: group grabs 6% more market share as it cashes in ZPG shares worth £38.5m
They say the strongest thrive in difficult markets, and Connells 600 branch network claims to be doing just that, helped by a £38.5m windfall from the sale of its ZPG shares. Parent company Connells Group revealed this morning that it increased market share by 6% last year and now claims to have the largest book of properties for sale in the UK, despite being half the size of rival Countrywide. On the back of this, its pre-tax profits for 2017 increased by 42% to £104.2m from £73.4m, its latest results show. The group also says it has bucked the market and while nationally there has been a 14.7% decline in transactions compared to 2016 – according to the latest Land Registry figures – Connells Group experience only minor slippage. Sales instructions were down by 2%, sales by 3% and exchanges by 4%. The company sells approximately 70,000 properties a year and manages 45,000 lettings with 7,000 staff. Its mortgage division helped too, where income increased by 13%, while lettings income increased by 9% but profits shot up by a third. Land and new homes and conveyancing performed strongly too, as did its survey division where profits increased by 5.4%. “Our…
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Countrywide break-up now a possibility, claims former chairman
Former Countrywide chairman Harry Hill has said that he believes an aggressive break-up of the company could now “be a possibility”. The comments came as he hit out at the Alison Platt years, suggesting that the company’s habit of replacing “seasoned professionals” with retail-background management was a mistake. Harry (pictured, left) is also critical of the current non-exec chairman of Countrywide for his lack of property experience. This is Peter Long, who gained much of his track record in the travel industry and who has stepped in to run the company until a replacement is found for Platt. “City reaction has been very muted and most people close to the company appear to think that recruiting a high calibre person will be difficult, and any recovery process will probably [also] be slow and difficult,” he told website Dealmakerz. Although the Countrywide share price has bombed since the New Year falling from £1.35 a share in January to a low of £0.78p earlier this month, its share price has begun a mild recovery. Crunch time? Following early morning trading today it now stands at £0.90p a share. But crunch time for Countrywide is likely to arrive on the 27th April when…
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