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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Auction sales and revenues drop
Essential Auction News (EIG) reports that the number of auction sales – and revenues – dropped this Spring.
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Can Purplebricks ever make ‘fees saved’ comparisons again?
A complaint by West Sussex estate agent Arun Estates to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about nine ‘fees saved’ testimonials still currently featured on the Purplebricks website has been upheld. The decision goes to the core of the debate around Purplebricks, which many traditional agents believe often compares itself inaccurately with its high street competitors because its ‘fees saved’ claims don’t reflect the different service levels offered by high street and online agents. The ASA complaint refers to testimonials seen last summer – and still live on the Purplebricks site – in which the company claims its customers have made significant savings by using its services than compared to traditional agents, based on an average fee of 1.8%. Purplebricks told the ASA that it was “very difficult” to find out what agents charged their clients and that it varied a lot from area to area, but that they had conducted a customer survey among 2,308 respondents instead. Average commission It discovered that the average commission in the UK is 1.5%, to which they added 0.3% VAT, and also told the ASA that other organisations including Citizens Advice Bureau and YourMoney.com pointed to a similar figure. But the ASA says it…
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A fourth office for Alexanders
Alexanders has opened a fourth office at Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
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LonRes Summer Party and awards – in pictures
There are thousands of estate agents around the UK who like to throw a summer drinks party for staff and clients. And as long as the weather holds, why not? But perhaps best-known, and the most difficult to get tickets for is the LonRes Summer Party which this year took place recently on Belgrave Square in the heart of London’s central Belgravia district. Some 700 guests attended the event, at which Lonres chairman William Carrington welcomed everyone and also announced winners of the much coveted LonRes Awards. These celebrate the best deals in London’s super-prime market each year, using data from the LonRes London property data bank, as well as several people awards. The Negotiator was lucky enough to get hold of a ticket to the event. Here are some of the winners. Let of the Year Savills Waterfront, Laura Bushells Best Office Administrator Sinead Boxell of Sandfords Estate Agents (Regent’s Park) Let of the Year, East London Knight Frank Canary Wharf, Chanel Rodriguez Best Newcomer Award Pollyanna Prescot, Wetherell Lifetime Achievement Award Trevor Abrahmsohn, Glentree International
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What retirement? Michael Stoop rejoins Winkworth after 25 years
Veteran industry franchising heavyweight Michael Stoop (pictured, below) has re-joined Winkworth as a consultant 25 years after he left the company. Michael started at Winkworth in 1976 but just five years later was the first person to open a franchised Winkworth office, at a branch in Parsons Green, central London. He then sold it on to a new Winkworth franchisee in 1988, having earlier been made Managing Director of the company. Four years later in 1992 he left Winkworth to join Xperience, the franchising division of Legal & General, where he worked for 22 years before joining Martin & Co as Group Managing Director in 2014, after it bought Xperience for £6 million and then rebranded as The Property Franchise Group. This new group company then brought together Martin & Co as well as the brands Michael brought with him including Ellis & Co, CJ Hole, Parkers and Whitegates, under one umbrella. Last year The Property Franchise Group added online-only agency Ewemove to its portfolio in a deal worth £15m. But in August last year Michael retired from The Property Franchise Group and set up Michael Stoop Property Services with a member of his family, which at Companies House is…
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DM Hall moves Glasgow North office
DM Hall, one of Scotland’s largest independent firms of Chartered Surveyors, is moving its Glasgow North branch into the heart of the city’s business district at 220 St Vincent Street...
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High street agents making 473% profit on some lettings fees, says OpenRent
The profits generated from the lettings fees charged by high street agencies remain unfair despite the looming ban to be introduced during the next parliament. That is the claim made by the UK’s largest letting agency brand, online-only operator OpenRent, which says it is now the biggest in the market at 50,000+ properties let a year, up from 25,000 two years ago. This, OpenRent says, makes it larger than competitors LSL at 35,000 rentals, Foxtons at 20,000 or Haart at 5,000. It also claims to have a ‘time to rent’ of seven days. Referencing cost The South London-based online agency says the real cost of referencing a tenant is £15 and yet recent government research indicates an average industry cost to tenants of £86. It also reveals that the average cost of setting up a guarantor is £95, while the real cost is also £15. And the average cost of a tenancy renewal is £85 but OpeRent, using a calculated cost based on it taking ten minutes to check a renewal contract and an average negotiator salary of £20,000, £4 to renew. Using the same hourly calculation of staff cost, OpeRent says it costs high street agents between £4 and…
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Where there’s muck there’s digital opportunity, says Fisher German
If you think that rural estate agents are a bunch of tweed and welly-wearing luddites then think again. Country agent Fisher German has launched a mobile phone app for the rural community that puts the efforts of most tech-savvy city agents to shame. The 15-office company, which has its HQ in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire and offers a range of consultancy services to the rural business and property market including a residential estate agency business, has launched an app that offers users news from the BBC and Farmers Weekly, its own news as well as events calendar, weather updates all based on the user’s location. The app (pictured, right) will also offer weights and measures converters, agricultural commodity data and digital maps. Available via both Google Play and the Apple’s App Store, the app doesn’t include residential properties for sale, and instead focuses on the wider rural community. Outside the norm The idea for the app came not from an expensive digital agency, but instead was thought up during a Dragon’s Den-style brain-storming session with Loughborough app developer Cuttlefish last year. “I am excited to have worked on a project totally outside of the norm for a Rural Chartered Surveyor and…
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Women fill key positions at Propertymark for first time
ARLA and NAEA Propertymark have revealed who won their recent leadership elections following a secret four-week hustings. Billed as an opportunity that “allows you to shape your organisation and to have your voice heard” the election was for both organisations’ Vice Presidents, whose role is to support the President and President Elect. The elected Vice Presidents are Michelle Niziol for ARLA, who agents will recognise from BBC TV’s The Apprentice from last year, and Lauren Scott for NAEA. It is the first time women have been elected to both positions at the same time. The new line up is: ARLA President Sally Lawson Sally has 27 years’ experience in the lettings industry, and is CEO and Founder of the national lettings franchise Concentric as well as West Midlands lettings agency Lawsons. The two organisations merged recently. President Elect Peter Savage A former professional drummer until the mid-1980s Peter then set up a property business in Spain, which he sold in 1990 and then returned to the UK. He now works as a consultant to an Essex lettings firm and a block management firm. Vice President Michelle Niziol Until recently 35-year-old Michelle was best known as a founder of IMS,…
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Online estate agent Settled gets £1.2m in funding
Settled, an online estate agent which was launched a year ago and claims to help vendors cut ‘time to sell’ in half when compared to traditional agents, has won £1.2 million in funding from two venture capital firms. The backing includes money from Piton Capital, which is already funding two other property companies, Paris-focussed online property information firm MeilleursAgents.com and German removals platform Move24. Settled was set up by former Google executive Gemma Young with her brother Paul (pictured, right) who has a background in online marketing, in 2014. Online estate agent The pair raised seed funding from entrepreneur John Hegarty’s start-ups venture capital firm The Garage Soho, and subsequently picked up £1m from a Silicon Valley venture capital firm – 500 Startups – last year. Hegarty is one of the three people who set up legendary advertising firm Bartle Bogle Hegarty during the 1980s. The online estate agent launched last year and at the time said it was aiming to disrupt the UK property buying and selling process by empowering home owners and cut out the middleman. The company now says it has sold properties worth £250m. It charges £499 to sell a property, a fee that can either…
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