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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2018 will see the lettings industry consolidate, predicts Belvoir
The UK’s largest franchise firm Belvoir says a rush of acquisitions by its franchisees of competitor companies both during 2017 and into the New Year suggest the lettings industry faces a wave of consolidation as the fees ban looms. Belvoir says its lawyers are currently processing a “robust pipeline” of competitor acquisitions by its franchisees in recent months. The company says these acquisitions will be completed during the first three months of the year and that the “appetite for securing portfolio acquisitions reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of our franchisees who are adapting to changes within the sector and seeing opportunity for growth as the sector consolidates,” says CEO Dorian Gonsalves. Belvoir also says it helped its franchisees buy up 23 competitors last year, adding 2,264 properties to its lettings business. This brings the total number of properties managed by Belvoir Group companies to over 58,000, and helped increase its network revenue by £3.3 million, exceeding the £3 million target set by its board for 2017, and raising its head office fee revenue by £350,000. Helping hand The high number of competitor acquisitions has also been boosted by Belvoir’s Assisted Acquisitions programme, which encourages existing franchisees to buy local firms, helped…
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£17m raised at Auction House London sale
Cheers sounded throughout the saleroom for Auction House London at its latest upbeat auction as the hammer came down on its first lot of the day at almost £100,000 above the guide price.
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JOHNS&CO opens in West Hampstead
JOHNS&CO, a specialist sales, lettings and property management agent for the new homes market in London, is opening its first New Homes office located in West Hampstead.
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Buyers in France and Vietnam push prices up in Dorset
Sherborne, Dorset was a very busy part of the world on 27th October as buyers from all over the South of England descended on the town for Symonds & Sampson’s latest property auction.
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Fine & Country opes new office in Maresme
Fine & Country has opened a new office in Maresme, Spain, to service the Barcelona coast, the surrounding coastal areas of Sant Andreu de Llanvaneres and the city of Mataro.
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Lettings agent offers homeless a £2,000-a-month apartment for free over Christmas
A serviced apartment rentals company is offering a £2,000-a-month, two-bedroom flat (pictured, right) in Kings Cross, central London, free of charge to homeless people over Christmas. The company, City Booker, is headed up by Laurence Lemeche who himself was homeless during his 20s when he first moved to London and says he remembers being in a cycle of homelessness and unemployment – unable to get a job because he had no home and not able get a home because he was unemployed. Laurence (pictured, below) says at one point he slept in his car, but that this cycle was broken when a landlord gave him somewhere to sleep and now he wants to do the same for one of the capital’s homeless, who make up one in every 59 Londoners, according to housing charity Shelter. He hopes that his offer of free accommodation will inspire other landlords to do the same and “help someone else turn their lives around this Christmas”. Any agents or landlords who know someone who is homeless should direct them to Lawrence’s Facebook page to apply to live in the flat. According to Shelter there will be 307,000 people sleeping rough or living in temporary housing…
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Clive Emson’s biggest sale of year raises £23 million
Clive Emson Auctioneers’ sales topped £23 million at their autumn auction, with a sale rate of 79 per cent across 179 lots for the auction...
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Rokstone opens lettings in London
Prime central London agent Rokstone has launched a new lettings division, extending its residential offering.
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Purplebricks agrees to clarify what ‘pay nothing upfront’ means on its website
It has been a busy week for the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) which has had to deal with three property firms referred to it by members of the public, including Purplebricks. This will be the fifth time this year the hybrid agency has been dealt with by the ASA and the tenth time overall since 2015. This time the hybrid agency has agreed to add a clickable but tiny ‘information’ symbol (see below) on its ‘What’s included in our fixed fee’ page next to the words ‘A choice to pay nothing upfront’. A member of the public complained that this could be misleading because, if a vendor chooses to pay later they either have to use Purplebricks’ Advanced Conveyancing Services or, if they don’t, pay an administration fee of £360 including VAT. After being contacted by the ASA, Purplebricks inserted the pop-up information button containing the words explaining this, and the case was resolved informally. Two other agents The other agents featuring in this week’s ASA cases include Property Collection Worldwide and Space4Living. Cambridge-based the Property Collection Worldwide had been reported for claiming to be the “UK’s leading estate agents’ marketing specialists”, a claim that when challenged it agreed to…
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‘Only strong letting agents will survive fees ban’
Not many letting agents can say they have been able to buy up three rivals within three years of establishing their business from scratch. But that is what Angela Newark can claim after revealing today that she has bought the property management portfolio of sales and now former letting agent Martin Lonsdale in Saltaire, West Yorkshire, taking her managed stock to over 800 properties. In 2014 she cold-started a Martin & Co franchised branch in Saltaire but then bought rival Village Estates in 2015 and then the Keighley office of Whitegates in 2016 (pictured, below), also part of the Martin & Co family. Letting agents “I’m a beneficiary of the multi-brand strategy of The Property Franchise Group as I trade both as Whitegates and Martin & Co,” she says. “Central office assisted me with the acquisitions and I’m looking at other businesses currently. I know agents are worried about the tenant fee ban, but the strong will survive, and my business is now set for further growth in 2018”, said Angela. The Property Franchise Group owns six franchised lettings brands including Martin & Co, EweMove, CJ Hole, Ellis & Co, Parkers and Whitegates and operation nearly 300 branches. The detail of the tenant fees ban…
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