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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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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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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