EweMove
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Features
Safety in numbers – is it worth joining a franchise?
In a challenging market it can be tough being independent, says Joanne Christie, so could joining a franchise be your key to success?
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Latest property news
“We’re not an online agent” insists EweMove Head Shepherd
The ‘head shepherd’ of estate agent EweMove says his business is not an ‘online agency’ and that nearly 10% of his franchisees have now opened high street stores. The latest to open is in Bexleyheath in South London (pictured), which like many of the company’s 110 franchisees is a high street agent who has re-branded – in its case from Apex Residential. Nick Neill, who became Managing Director of EweMove in June and also used to hold a franchise in York, says he believes its model is one-off in the industry. “I don’t like it when we’re lumped in with the online agents – we’re just chalk and cheese. There is no comparison,” he says. “Online agents in my book charge up-front for their service and leave a lot of the rest to the vendor including viewings,” he says. “Although a lot of marketing is online to generate leads, we do all the viewings and also do face-to-face appraisals, valuations and photos and also pre-qualify viewers. No contract “Also, we don’t tie any seller into a contract term and they are free to walk away at any time, not having spent a single penny on bringing their property to market…
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Latest property news
It’s over! Belvoir pulls out of merger attempt with Martin & Co parent company
Franchise letting agency giant Belvoir has ended its attempted takeover bid for rival The Property Franchise Group (TPFG), parent company of Martin & Co and five other brands including hybrid agency EweMove. Belvoir today announced that it was ending its attempts to persuade TPFG shareholders to back Belvoir’s attempts to buy TFPF and merge the two businesses. Despite having considerable goodwill, Belvoir has admitted that without the support of the key TPFG directors and their share-owning backers a deal would be difficult, if not impossible. Belvoir’s statement confirming the withdrawal of the merger offer says: “The Belvoir board is disappointed that the TPFG board has declined to enter into a dialogue, not least given that the board itself has recognised the scale that would be achieved in combining the two businesses, and moreover, given a number of common institutional shareholders have publicly stated their support, in principle, for a dialogue between the boards of Belvoir and TPFG with regard to the Possible Merger Offer”. End of the bid The end of the bid to merge the two businesses has been prompted by the timetable that companies entering into a takeover must stick to, as set out in the City Code…
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Latest property news
What went wrong? Belvoir reveals merger with TPFG DID have green light
Belvoir has responded to the brush-off delivered by The Property Franchise Group (TPFG) on 19th October which said the merger of the two businesses “would not be in the best interests” of TPFG. TPFG owns franchised lettings giant Martin & Co and online agency EweMove as well as CJ Hole, Ellis & Co, Parkers and Whitegates with a combined branch count of almost 300 and 50,000 tenanted properties. The board of directors at Belvoir says it is “disappointed” by the response and that the merger offer made by Belvoir was not an unsolicited one. Also, reading in between the lines of the statement, TPFG appears to have led Belvoir to believe the merger offer would be well received. Belvoir merger with TPFG Belvoir says there was previously a “willingness to engage in discussions expressed to the Board on more than one occasion by TPFG”. The company says its merger offer was structured to reflect these discussions, which included issuing 0.7150 new shares per TPFG share and 52.2p in cash per TPFG share, but says the cash element of the offer could be reduced and the number of shares increased to reduce the cost of the merger. Belvoir also says it…
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Latest property news
A Question of Property: Russell Quirk, CEO of eMoov
Are online agents like yours really gaining market share? Yes, Rightmove figures show the share of online agents has increased from 2.5% in early 2015 to 6.5% today – that’s an increase of more than 100% in two years. We have data that shows, depending on area, the propensity for people to use an online agent is increasing at a significant rate. I believe it’s all about tipping point. If you talk to business experts, they believe it’s somewhere around 12% market share. We are rapidly moving towards that. Where’s this growth coming from? Look at Countrywide and Foxtons. Their listings and revenues are dropping while the decent online operators such as Purplebricks, Yopa and ourselves are growing our share and numbers in absolute terms in a market that is down by 30%. Some say it’s all fuelled by investors’ cash Yes, it is a question of cash but it’s also about proposition and execution – I think there will be two or three winners in this market. Investors are getting fickler and I know of one online agent which is struggling to raise funding now. But it’s more about that if there are ten competitors in a new market,…
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Latest property news
Martin & Co embraces hybrid opportunities from Ewemove acquisition
Letting agency franchise giant Martin & Co enjoyed a ‘robust’ 2016 and has put the business model and technology of recently-acquired Ewemove.com at the heart of its operations, its latest trading update reveals. Martin & Co increased its revenue by 15% last year to £8.2 million during 2016 and added 90 branches to its network as well as increasing the number of tenanted properties it manages by 3,000 to 48,000. Looking to the future, CEO Ian Wilson (pictured) also says that the fees ban is unlikely to be “significantly impacting our business”. The group says its robust performance has taken place despite the challenging market conditions following the Brexit vote, a result it has managed by growing fees and lowering costs and also the inclusion of a modest contribution from hybrid agency Ewemove.com, which is acquired in September 2016 and that now has 96 franchisees. The trading update also says that the Group is also importing some of the intellectual capital of EweMove into its five traditional high street brands, and that it will be launching new websites with a facility for customers to book valuation appointments in real time. “The acquisition of EweMove marked an important milestone for the…
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Latest property news
Carol Smillie is the new ‘face’ of EweMove’s
Ewemove steps up it's marketing campaign. No jokes about looking sheepish, please!
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