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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We need a long-term vision and a housing tsar, says Belvoir
Estate agent franchise group Belvoir has published an open letter to the Prime Minister Theresa May calling for both the appointment of a housing tsar and an ombudsman for tenants. Released today, its Chief Operating Officer Dorian Gonsalves (pictured, right) says the UK needs a cross-party housing tsar to work with industry experts, social housing providers and all housing stake holders to help “create a stable property market with a long-term vision”. Dorian describes new Housing Minister Alok Sharma (pictured, left), MP for Reading West, as “Britain’s sixth since the Tories came into power in 2010” and that on average they only stay in post for 12 months. “I believe that the appointment of a housing tsar, who could work with industry experts and politicians from all parties, and then make recommendations to the new Housing Minister, would be an effective way of increasing market stability, and would be extremely beneficial for the housing industry,” he says. Leave landlords alone Gonsalves says Belvoir has been calling for the current government to encourage rather the alienate landlords, who he says are best placed to provide the extra rented homes “the UK so badly needs”. “It is no longer acceptable to use…
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‘California calling’ for Purplebricks US launch
Purplebricks has revealed that its first launch in the US is to take place in California later this year. In February CEO Michael Bruce announced that he had raised £50 million from the City to set up operations in several US property markets in a bid to take a slice of the country’s £56 billion commission cake. Purplebricks hired former proptech start-up figure in the US Eric Eckardt (pictured, left) to head up its US business, who says he is targeting California first because of its strong housing and economic fundamentals. “Purplebricks is launching in the US with a distinct offering which aims to offer a better deal for customers and a compelling opportunity for highly skilled, experienced Local Real Estate Experts,” says Eric. The state has the highest number of transactions within the US, according to the California Association of Realtors, and generates commissions each year of £11.5 billion. US roll-out Once it has a foothold in California, Purplebricks says it will then roll-out its offering across other US states, which are likely to include other high-transaction states such as Florida, Texas, Arizona and New York. Purplebricks is now putting its considerable resources into seeking out real estate agents across…
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Nick Dunning buys second lettings business
Nick Dunning Associates has revealed the purchase of another property business, Adams Property, a single-branch, lettings-only agency in Ealing, West London (pictured, right). Adams Property has been bought largely for its management book, which includes 700 properties in and around Ealing, and its reputation. The company was started up in 1993 and will now be added to the Badger Holdings portfolio, which Nick Dunning Associates acquired in late January this year. Badger Holdings operates the Townends and Regents high street brands which total 26 branches in London, Surrey, Middlesex and Hampshire. Adams Property is a trading name of and shares a registered address and most of the directors, of Middlesex Properties Management, which specialises in buy-to-let portfolio management and was set up in 1989. Badger Holdings The Badger Holding acquisition took place soon after Reading-based Nick Dunning Associates was launched, backed by an unnamed private equity investor and staffed by former Countrywide colleagues of Dunning’s. These include Julian Irby, who is the company’s CFO, Matt Hewitt, who is its Commercial Director and Sales Director Graham Harrison. Dunning says his company will acquire 20 lettings-only or focused business a year for the next five years in a bid to become a…
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Cluttons re-joins ZPG from OnTheMarket.com
Leading London agent Cluttons has left OnTheMarket.com and re-joined Zoopla just weeks after being saved from going into administration by turnaround specialist RCapital. It had been reported that Cluttons had been struggling with the severe slump in central London’s prime markets, which has seen the number of properties being sold in the capital halve over the past year or more. It has also been hit by a huge pension fund deficit recently. Cluttons went into pre-pack administration in early May, a legal move that enables any struggling UK business to be bought before going into administration. Significant restructuring During the process Cluttons has said it is to go through a “significant restructuring” and Steve Morgan, its young chief executive, is understood to still hold equity in the business alongside RCapital. As part of the overhaul of the business, the 250-year-old company and its six branches in the UK re-joined Zoopla at the end of May and, Zoopla says, gained 100 leads across its office network during the first 24 hours. Cluttons used to have a further three branches in Belgravia, Clapham and Blackheath, but these have been closed with the loss of 19 jobs. “We’re pleased to be with ZPG,”…
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Online agents are just a “property version of Ebay with a helpline”
Leading London agent Lurot brand general manager James Robinson (pictured, right) has launched a scathing attack on the UK’s online agents describing them as a “property version of ebay with a helpline”. In a head-on clash with online agents, Robinson says in an opinion piece in London’s City AM newspaper that too many vendors don’t realise that, although they are saving money on agent fees, an agent’s expertise and experience can help save them the “tens or even hundreds of thousands” lost by not having a negotiator on their side. “This may sound far-fetched, but every estate agent has listened to dinner party boasts of the tens of thousands of pounds a guest has cleverly saved on estate agent fees this way,” he says. Robinson goes on to say that because agents do the job of selling houses every day, they know only too well how important it is to have someone in the middle during negotiations. “We also know that estate agents have databases of the best buyers relying on agents, rather than portals, to notify them of properties coming to the market in specific locations,” he says. “Also, there’s greater accountability; if you get it badly wrong, you…
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Guild and online agent easyProperty merge in £60m deal
The Guild of Property Professionals has struck a £60m deal with online agent easyProperty.com to enable its 5,000 members to use the website’s online sales and lettings packages. The deal, which will complete later this month, also merges the Guild’s parent company GPEA, which also owns 300-branch network Fine & Country, with easyProperty, to be called e-Prop Services. The new company will be headed up by GPEA executive director Jon Cooke(pictured, below) who will also be CEO of e-Prop, while easyProperty founder Rob Elice (pictured, left) will remain with easyProperty. He says the Guild and Fine & Country members will be able to target a wider range of sellers and in particular those at the lower end of the market, who are largely the price-sensitive bread and butter of the online agents. “This deal allows our independent agents to offer more consumer choice with sales and lettings products catering to both the do-it-yourself and the do-it-for-me vendor and landlord preferences. “We recognise the market requires and demands both online products and traditional methods. What I’d like to stress is this newly merged business is the convergence of traditional estate agency and online. “Effectively we are providing independent agents the ability…
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Countrywide CFO Jim Clarke retires, replaced by former G4S finance chief
Countrywide’s long-serving Chief Financial Officer Jim Clarke is to retire in July, making way for Himanshu Raja, who joins the company’s board on Monday and will take up position in August. Jim Clarke (pictured, left), who has in the past also taken the role of media commentator for Countrywide and recently led a share placement of nearly £40m to fund the company’s hybrid estate agency roll-out, has been with the company since 2007. His background before joining was in the hospitality and fitness sectors first at pub chain JD Wetherspoon and before that at David Lloyd Leisure. His retirement comes almost exactly two years to the day since two of his former colleagues, Bob Scarff and Nick Dunning, resigned from the company just nine months after Group Chief Executive Alison Platt took the helm. Clarke was also one of eight senior management figures who sold shares options worth millions in 2015 following the company’s return to the stock market in 2013, in his case worth £2.4 million. He is being replaced by Himanshu Raja who until last year was Group Chief Financial Officer of security firm G4S where he earned £1.7 million a year. He has been on sabbatical since…
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Boxing event raises £18k for Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
A charity boxing event held in association with Landlord Action and sponsored by Hamilton Fraser raised £18,000 last week for Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice. The sell-out Rumble with the Agents evening featured six boxing matches watched by guests who enjoyed a three-course dinner at the Holiday Inn hotel in Finchley Central, North London. Organised by Landlord Action’s and TV star Paul Shamplina (pictured, far right), the audience included a range of property professionals including sales and letting agents, developers and industry suppliers as well as representative from the charity. A raffle was held by former Tottenham Hotspur captain and 16-times capped England player Gary ‘Mabbsy’ Mabbutt (pictured centre left), who oversaw lively bidding for sporting memorabilia including a signed Arsenal shirt from 1971, a signed Anthony Joshua boxing glove and an original 1996 World Cup final ticket signed by Geoff Hurst – which sold for £750. Mabbutt is an ambassador for the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, which is the chosen charity of Tottenham Hotspur FC. The boxing matches were fought by ten participants with little or no previous boxing experience but who had undergone a regime of training and coaching before the bouts. All ten come from property industry backgrounds. The…
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Top high street firms outperform online agents, research shows
The top-performing high street agents in the UK outperform online agents in all areas including achieved asking price and time taken to sell, it has been revealed. Research by consumer advice website HomeOwnersAlliance.com found that the top 1,000 best performing agents achieved on average 100.35% of their asking price, “suggesting that sellers can still maximise their home’s potential by selecting the correct local agents”. These agents also have a much better sales success rate than online agents, the research reveals, and sell 82.42% of homes listed with them compared to 51.98% by online and hybrid agents. “Sellers who look carefully at their local market before listing their home for sale will probably still be better off instructing the best high street agent in their area,” says Paula Higgins, Chief Executive of the HomeOwners Alliance. But for those looking for a quick, easy sale with surprisingly high rewards, online agents are an excellent and rapidly-improving option.” But the performance of online agents versus the whole high street market compares less favourably for traditional agents. Asking price The research reveals that online agents achieve a higher percentage of the asking price than their high street competitors despite charging on average £850 in…
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Mandatory three-year tenancies questioned by leading lettings agent
The UK’s largest lettings agency Belvoir has set itself against all the mainstream political party manifestos and the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) by questioning the need for mandatory three-year tenancies. The Conservative Party seeks to “encourage landlords to offer longer tenancies as standard” while Labour goes much further, saying it will “make three-year tenancies the norm with an inflation cap on rent rises”. The Liberal Democrats advocate “longer tenancies of three years or more with an inflation-linked annual rent increase built in to give tenants security”. But Belvoir’s latest lettings index shows that 43% of tenants who rent through its branches stay for between 13-18 months, 29% for between 19-24 months and only 18.2% for more than two years. ‘Question the need’ “Looking at the manifestos of all political parties it would seem that all are looking to introduce three-year mandatory tenancy agreements although [our] figures question the need for this as our tenants can already rent with confidence, and most opt to leave when they wish to do so,” Belvoir says. But not all landlords agree with Belvoir’s point of view. As we reported last week, one of London’s largest Build to Rent landlords recently scrapped deposits…
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