Search Results for: 1.5 million new homes
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Latest property news
2016 Countrywide results reveal £15.8m spent on branch closures, and profits down by 59%
Countrywide PLC has this morning revealed its results for 2016 following what Chairman Peter Long describes as a “difficult year” for the company. Highlights of the Countrywide results include revenue that edged up half a percent to £737m, profit before taxation that nosedived by 59% to £19.5%, a £32.8 million windfall from the sale of ZPG shares and a strong performance by its mortgages, surveying and lettings businesses. Chief Executive Alison Platt (pictured, below) reveals that the company focussed on cost cutting last year to the tune of £10m, although its restructuring costs included spending £8.1 million on redundancies and £15.8 million on branch closures. This has included a ‘management delayering’ that has saved £5 million and headcount ‘rationalisation’ in marketing, finance and new homes that has saved £1.5 million. Countrywide also says it saved £3.5 million by consolidating branches in 180 locations and involving 214 branches. Alison Platt blames the poor performances of Countrywide’s sales businesses on uncertainty caused by the EU Referendum result as well as the recent Stamp Duty changes, which she says have both led to falling volumes of properties for sale. The number of homes sold via its brands dropped by 1% outside London to…
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Latest property news
Rightmove shares slide as agents grumble
Rightmove announced full year results on Friday 24th February, reporting further success. Pre-tax profits rose from £137.1m in 2015 to £161.5m in 2016, up by almost 18 per cent. Revenues rose by 15 per cent to £220m. So why, on that day, did their shares slide down a steep hill – down 5.8 per cent to £40, wiping over £200 million off its value? Rightmove Chairman, Scott Forbes said, “Our audience, best in class platforms and significant property inventory advantage coupled with our focus on innovation at the core of our business drives our value proposition for the benefit of both our trade customers and consumers. Property data has always been at the core of what we do and we are excited about continuing to harness the power of our data to drive further transparency and efficiency in the property market, predict market opportunities and drive success for our customers and consumers.” There’s no doubt that Rightmove is doing well for its investors, so it is possible that the fall was due to the announcement of Nick McKittrick’s (pictured right) forthcoming retirement, as the national papers deduced, but could there also be growing unrest among Rightmove’s 20,121 Agency and New Homes customers? RIGHTMOVE…
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Latest property news
Agent spend on Rightmove tops £10,000 a year
Profits at Rightmove jumped by 18% last year, the company’s final results published this morning reveal, helped by charging agents on average an extra £88 a month. This took average spend to £842 a month or £10,104 a year (see graph, right) Operating profits rose from £137.2 million in 2015 to £161.6 million in 2016, helping boost earnings per share by 21%. All the dials on the Rightmove ship twitched upwards including revenue, which increased by 15% to £220 million including £168.3 million from agents, £33.9 million from new homes developers and £17.8 million from other sources. The report says the number of agents and developers advertising with the portal increased by 2% during 2016 to 20,121. It also highlights the listings gap between it and Zoopla, as Rightmove says it listed a million properties last year, a third more than ‘any other portal’. “Rightmove continues to be the place that home movers turn to first, with nearly 1.5 billion visits in 2016, up 10% on last year,” says outgoing CEO Nick McKittrick (pictured). “Home movers spent nearly a billion minutes every month searching and researching homes on Rightmove, the only place you can see almost the entire UK property market. “Our…
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Latest property news
Home moves to shrink by 200,000 following Brexit vote, says L&G chief
The Brexit vote may lead to some 200,000 transactions being knocked off the number of homes sold this year according to Legal and General Building Services’ managing director Steve Goodall. Speaking at a recent conference organised by Mortgage Finance Gazette, Goodall (pictured, below) said the UK long-term average was 1.5 million transactions a year, topping out at 1.6 million during the “heady heights” of 2006/7 before the financial crisis, then dipping down to 900,000 and now running at 1.2 million. “Because of what happened over the summer – i.e. the referendum vote for the UK to leave Europe – this year we night see a flatlining of transactions,” he said. “The equivalent number of transactions over the last three months may have actually dropped to around one million per annum.” Goodall also said transactions should be much higher overall, pointing out that current levels of transaction should be measured against the growing number of households in the UK. Therefore, he calculates, the market should be running at 1.7 or 1.8 million transactions a year not 1.2 million. “There are more people yet there are fewer housing transactions,” he said. The conference was attended by a mixed bag of industry leaders including Karl…
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Latest property news
Stamp Duty change whips up a storm
Designs on Property tracks and summarises the monthly property indices. Kate Faulkner says, “Even the higher taxes haven’t dampened investors’ enthusiasm.”
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Uncategorised
The big buy-to-let bounce
Designs on Property tracks and summarises the monthly property indices. Kate Faulkner says, “The Chancellor’s increase in Stamp Duty for buy-to-let properties caused a massive leap in activity.”
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Features
The Northern Glamourhouse
Marc Da Silva is in CHESTER, an ancient city enjoying a glamorous renaissance.
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Regional Reports
Edinburgh, Bakewell and Cheltenham
Each month we visit three agents across the country to discover what is happening in their businesses and local markets. This month we visit Edinburgh, Bakewell and Cheltenham.
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Features
Bridging loans: out from the shadows
Most agents have thanked a bridging loan for saving a sale at some point their careers. But the industry that supplies them is changing fast. Nigel Lewis talks to one of the leading lenders.
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Latest property news
Rents rise 3.2% year-on-year
Rents rose by 3.2 per cent to an average £926 per month in February compared to the same time last year, the latest figures show. The Countrywide monthly Lettings Index for February has identified a fall in tenants’ negotiating power, with the average home in the UK let for 99.9 per cent of the asking rent, the highest such value since 2007, just before the global economic downturn. This figure is highest in London where the average let was agreed at 100.9 per cent of the asking price while it was lowest in Wales at 98.7 per cent. With demand continuing to heavily outstrip the supply of private rental homes, one in five of those renting in the capital pay more than asked for to secure a property of their choice. This equates to £94 a month over and above the asking rent against a UK average of £44 which, over the course of a typical 17-month tenancy, works out to be an additional £1,578 in rent for the average Londoner. Rental price growth in London has unsurprisingly outstripped all other parts of the country since 2007, with rents 34 per cent above their pre-recession record compared to12 per cent…
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