Two leading estate agents have released their latest trading statements over the past 24 hours but as performance goes, Foxtons and Hunters might as well be on different planets, their results reveal.

Hunters this morning reports that its franchised sales and lettings business is in rude health.

Chairman and MP Kevin Hollinrake will say at the firm’s AGM later today that the company has already seen 12 new branches join its network and that there is a strong pipeline of sales including increased instructions during the first four months of this year, up by 5.4% year-on-year.

He also says the first half of the year is shaping up to be “better than anticipated” and that its customer service approval rate has increased to 96%.

Foxtons

At the same time Foxtons has also released its latest trading statement, which paints an entirely gloomier picture – even though both companies are competitors in many parts of London.

At its AGM yesterday the company revealed that its sales, lettings and mortgage businesses performed worse during the first quarter of 2018 than the year before, warning that “conditions in the London property market remain very challenging with sales volumes lower than the year before”.

“Performance in lettings was impacted by a slow start to January and the timing of Easter,” it says.

Foxton’s total first quarter revenues dipped from £28.7 million last year to £24.5 million this year including sales down by 26%, lettings down by 7.7% and mortgage revenues which slipped by 4.7%.