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 results show another standout performance from Connells Group and, importantly, in the context of a more subdued marketplace,” says Connells Group CEO David Livesey (pictured, left).

“2017 presented a number of challenges for the industry, but we thrive on challenge and, again, we proved our resilience and maintained our position as the most successful and profitable estate agency and property services group in the UK.”

The company also said it has enjoyed a good start to the year, echoing yesterday’s research from NAEA Propertymark. Connells says its saw the number of people selling their homes increase by 31% during January.

Read more about Connells.