The revival of London estate agency Foxtons continues after the company this morning announced a 21% rise in lettings revenues during the three months of the year.

This takes its overall Q1 revenues to £30 million from £27.7 million during the same period which, its CEO Nic Budden (pictured) says, was driven by ‘good growth’ within its lettings operation, although areas of the business are operating ‘in line with management expectations’ including a 5% rise in mortgage revenues.

“I am pleased to report we have had a good start to the year,” says Budden.

“The lettings business has performed strongly, growing both organically and through the contribution from the D&G acquisition.

“Our sales business has continued to deliver market share growth and entered the second quarter with a healthy under offer pipeline.

“We continue to take cost action and have made good progress with our pipeline of potential lettings portfolio acquisitions.”

The figures tell a slightly different story – while its lettings operation reported a big leap in revenues during Q1, sales revenue dropped by 9%.

Downturns

The results will be a relief for Foxtons’ beleaguered shareholders, many of whom endured several years of disastrous financial results at the firm as the London market was hit by Brexit and latterly the Covid downturn.

Budden and his senior team, now aided by former boss Peter Rollings who joined as a non-exec director in November 2021, switched strategy recently when the firm began expanding via acquisition instead of opening new branches.

But an official move into ‘virtual branches’ outside London has yet to materialise and the company is believed to be operating several pilot cold-starts in the Home Counties before deciding whether to roll out the scheme nationally.