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Latest property news
LSL sells ZPG shares for £32.9 million to prop up its 2016 results
The UK’s second largest corporate LSL Property Services sold all its ZPG shares last year for £32.9 million to “protect its balance sheet” during a difficult 2016 that saw profits and margins tumble. LSL is the parent company of 12 estate agency brands including YourMove, Reeds Rains and Marsh Parsons. It also employs 4,990 people in the UK across its three key areas, surveying, estate agency and mortgages. The group’s profits during 2016 dropped by 19% on revenue that edged up from £300.6 to £307.8 million. But its balance sheet looks better following the sales of its entire stock of Zoopla shares. Operating margin also decreased, from 14.3% to 11.3%. “After a strong overall first half performance in the Estate Agency Division we reacted decisively to the changing market conditions in the second half of the year with selective cost reduction measures,” says Chairman Simon Embley (pictured, left). “[This included] branch closures and [we] protected the balance sheet by disposing of the Group’s shareholding in Zoopla and pausing acquisition activity.” LSL strategy revealed LSL also revealed its plans for next year and beyond within the preliminary announcement including several of its key strategies. Ian Crabb, the Group Chief Executive (pictured, right)…
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Latest property news
Connells Group pre-tax profits rise, helped by £17m ZPG shares sale
Agent giant Connells Group has today reported a strong performance for 2016 including pre-tax profits of £73.4 million, an increase of 17.4% on the year before. This includes £17 million gained from selling some of its shares in ZPG Plc last year. Until then Connells Group had been one of ZPG’s top ten major shareholders with 16.73 million shares held, a million less than Countrywide – the two were part of a trio of agents including LSL to sign strategic partnerships with what was then just Zoopla in 2010. But Connells Group is doing well even with the ZPG windfall taken out. The group, which includes Connells and William H Brown, Barnard Marcus and Peter Alan, says it sold 8% more properties last year, 5% more new homes, generated 44% more income from its land division and 19% more cash via its new homes team. Other indicators twitching wildly include those at its mortgage arranging business where income rose 18% based on a lending total of £8.2 billion and 10% more mortgages arranged. There were also rises in income for its conveyancing and survey and valuation businesses. “All parts of the business delivered a strong performance and, considered alongside the…
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Features
What’s really happening to house prices?
House price reports What’s really happening to house prices? Jeremy Leaf endeavours to make sense of the various property market surveys.
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Latest property news
Mortgage lending recovery lead by first-time buyers, says CML
Last month mortgage lending reached £18.9 billion, 6% lower than December but 2% more than last January, says the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) The CML also says last month’s total was the highest for a January since the pre-financial crash peak in 2008. The number of loans approved has also been increasing since last summer’s Brexit-induced quiet property market, and the CML now says it expect to see 71,000 mortgages approved every month, 10,000 a month more than the period following the EU Referendum. But the CML’s senior economist Mohammad Jamei says the figures mask a twin-track market. “Weakness in buy-to-let and home movers have been offset by an increase in first-time buyers and remortgage lending,” he says. The CML says this trend shouldn’t be a surprise because most government schemes have been aimed at helping boost first-time buyer numbers and that, as a result, there were 360,000 first time buyers during 2016, up 8% on 2015. “A continuing acute shortage of homes being offered for sale is one aspect of a broken housing market, that looks unlikely to resolve in the near term,” says Jamei. Jeremy Dunscombe from the Legal & General Mortgage Club, says: “The start of…
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Latest property news
War on landlords
The UK Government’s ‘War on Landlords’ has caused buy-tolet sales to collapse, down by 64 per cent in twelve months.
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Latest property news
Has the CML changed its tune on longer tenancies?
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) has backed the government’s recent housing White Paper and says there is an “increased appetite” among lenders to advance mortgages to landlords who accommodate renters on longer tenancies. The White Paper sets out how the government is planning to create more secure, longer tenancies for families that would last up to three years and give people ‘the security they need to plan for the future’, Prime Minister Theresa May says in its introduction. Although the initiative has encountered criticism from some quarters of the property industry including eMoov chief execute Russell Quirk, who described the White Paper as ‘recycled rhetoric’, it has been welcomed by most agents and consumer groups including housing charity Shelter. The CML says it is keen to assist the government as it ‘works towards a market in which those renting can find a tenancy to suit their needs’. “Lenders already contribute to the funding of private and social rented housing, as well as owner-occupation, so we welcome and are comfortable with the cross-tenure approach in today’s white paper,” says Paul Smee, the CML’s director general. “We are now ready to work with the government, and with members and others, on the detailed implementation of…
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Features
Why we need to put renters first in the housing market
Owning your home will no longer the ‘norm’ says Aidan Rushby – new tenures and new designs will change the market.
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Housing Market
Is the risk of selling overseas property worth the reward?
Andrea Kirkby looks at the risks and rewards that come with international estate agency.
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Features
Buy-to-let, what happens next?
Scott Hendry, director at specialist finance provider Together, discusses what to expect from the buy-to-let sector after a challenging 2016.
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Features
The next big things for lettings tech in 2017
Organising viewings for potential tenants demands a lot of an agent’s time. Nigel Lewis looks at two new and very different, digital solutions.
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