Foxtons
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Latest property news
Property PLC share prices tumble as global stock markets stumble
The global collapse in share prices has hit the main property market PLCs this morning, except for Hunters. LSL Property Services, which owns Reeds Rains, Marsh & Parsons and Your Move, has been hit the hardest. Its shares had dropped by 7.55% by lunchtime today while almost all the others saw their share price cut too. Countrywide’s already much-reduced share price dropped by 5.1% and Belvoir by 3.8% while all the other saw reductions of approximately 2% including ZPG, Rightmove, Savills, Purplebricks and the Property Franchise Group. These share price drops reflect the wider global collapse in confidence among investors, and although the FTSE 100 Index has been drifting downwards over the past five days, the biggest drop took place this morning when it saw a 3.5% drop at the opening of trading, mirroring similar drops in France, Germany and other European markets. The drops in Europe follow worse falls in Japan and the US, where their key stock market indicators fell by 4.7% and 4.6% respectively. These drops were in turn triggered by improved trading conditions in the US, which led to speculation about potential higher inflation and therefore interest rates across the globe. But the global share price…
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Homeless pair use Foxtons to put a roof over their heads
London agent Foxtons do their bit for charity including supporting the capital’s Air Ambulance service but an initiative taken by a pair of homeless people over the past two weeks probably won’t make it onto their corporate social responsibility website. Max Bloom and Stephen Watt, both of whom had recently been made homeless, built a floating single-room house out of borrowed beer kegs, old sheds and used discarded Foxtons For Sale signs to make its striking roof. The juxtaposition of the Foxtons signs and the floating home created a stir on Twitter, and one neighbouring boat owner told The Evening Standard it was “worthy of the Tate modern”. But the Canal and River Trust aren’t art fans. The pair were forcibly evicted from their floating home last Thursday early in the morning and given two minutes to clear their possessions before a floating crane destroyed the structure. Solar panels Max and Stephen had spent a month planning the house, which included heating and cooking facilities, and had planned to add solar panels. The pair had also put in an application to the trust to have it registered. The pair have now been made homeless again. The trust say the hut…
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Foxtons reports profits down by 43% last year as London market pain continues
Foxtons’ results for 2017 are out and the company says its group turnover, profits and both sales and lettings revenues were down year-on-year but that it has some “strategic initiatives” up its sleeves due to be revealed next week. The company’s profits took the hardest knock. They dropped from £24.6 million in 2016 to £15 million last year, or 43%, as sales within London’s multi-million pound streets remain quiet despite hopes that the exchange rate would persaude more foreigners to buy into the capital’s bricks and mortar. Revenues from its sales operation dropped by nearly 24% year-on-year from £55 million to £42 million, although the crash in volumes within the capital appears to have eased during the final three months of year. But the company says it expects the pain in London to continue. Unlike last week’s Countrywide results which saw disappointing figures for both sides of its core business, Foxtons’ lettings operation continues to deliver at least only moderate revenue reductions – down last year by just 3%. Struggling performance But, despite the weak business performance, CEO Nic Budden appears to be dodging City, investor and board calls for fresh leadership. The company blames its struggling performance on the…
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ZPG signs up four more big agency brands to multi-year deals, including YOPA
Zoopla parent company ZPG has revealed its latest set of multi-year tie-in agreements with agents including its first with a hybrid operator. ZPG says it has signed ‘long term’ agreements with the agents, which are likely to be similar to ZPG’s recent deals with the larger agency networks and last up to five years. The named companies involved are all South of England and London agents; Foxtons, Dexters and Andrews plus online agency YOPA. The agreements usually offer agents more stable pricing structures in return for committing to advertise all their properties on ZPG’s two main portals, Zoopla and PrimeLocation. Although ZPG won’t reveal the nature of each agreement, they are either simple no-frills listing deals or include elements of services provided by ZPG’s business-to-business brands such as the Property Software Group and Hometrack. 200 branches The latest deals will keep 200 branches within ZPG including the 70 apiece that Foxtons and Dexters each operate, and Andrews’ 60 offices. Yopa doesn’t have any branches but like Purplebricks has local agents who work from home. These number 102 currently, spread across nine regional teams. “We’re delighted to extend our relationships with each of these firms for the long term,” says Mark…
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Fast-growing luxury buying agent hires former Marsh & Parsons sales star
Fast-growing luxury property buying agent Black Brick has poached one of London’s fast-rising agent stars, Alex Oliver (pictured, right). Harrow-educated Alex has joined Black Brick after four years working in the capital including initially two years and four months at Foxtons in Brook Green as a sales negotiator, and then a year and eight months at Marsh Parsons in Notting Hill. At M&P he was a senior sales negotiator and also one of the company’s top performing sales people. During his career to date Alex says he has sold property worth £50 million in “some of the toughest property markets”. “We are delighted to welcome Alex to the team,” says Camilla Dell, Managing Partner at Black Brick who, like Alex, is a former Foxtons employee (pictured, left). “As a boutique company, we work on a one to one, bespoke basis with our clients and Alex’s knowledge, expertise and personal approach is the perfect fit for our company ethos.” The company says its success is down to current market conditions and increased demand from buyers seeking impartial advice from the buying agency. The growing team now consists of nine staff, with plans for further expansion in the coming months. Times interview…
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Foxtons founder sells flats through former rival
If you’re wondering what Foxtons founder Jon Hunt has been doing with the £375 million fortune he amassed after he sold the estate agent to venture capital firm BC Ventures ten years ago, then the answer is – property development. Jon is currently selling a plot of land in Vauxhall, London that his property company Ocubis, which he owns through his development business Heven, recently gained planning permission for. But rather than sell it through his old firm the development site, which is near the MI5 building at 34-36 Albert Embankment (pictured), is being sold by one of his former rivals in the sales market, Strutt & Parker, it has been reported. Valued for sale at £50 million, the development is to include 166 apartments within two 25-storey towers but also include office and commercial units. Planning development The London Borough of Lambeth has granted detailed planning permission for the development, which will replace both a careworn Texaco garage and one of the Albert Embankment’s last Victorian warehouses, Vintage House. As well as the two residential towers, the site will eventually include 22,000 sq ft of commercial space and 1,500 sq ft of retail, including a café. The warehouse is…
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Leeds letting agent gets green light for unusual branch
For decades Foxtons lead the way in estate agent branch design with its signature shiny green signs, lounge-style sofas, drinks bar and funky desks. And for many rivals they irritatingly raised the bar of what the public expects of agent branches. But now Foxtons has a contender which has taken branch design to the next level and that, planners have said, will “raise the standard”. The company is Leeds-based student letting agent iFor Homes, which has just had plans for a novel take on the letting agency branch approved by Leeds City Council. Northern Eye UK, the parent company of iFor Homes, has been given permission to convert a Victorian Grade II listed building in the centre of Leeds (see above) into a hybrid café and letting agency branch (see left), as well as two apartments to be created upstairs. The new branch will be in the centre of city’s student area with both Leeds City College and Leeds Beckett University opposite. What used to be a seedy bar (see below) and separate residential dwelling are to be turned into a single unit (see right) and the façade of the building upgraded and refurbished. Plans seen by The Negotiator show…
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Why Foxtons’ results are even worse than its competitors
Proptech consultant James Dearsley (pictured, below) says Foxtons’ results revealed recently in its half-year results has been created by the legacy of its once might CRM system called BOS. The results, which were worse than many of its competitors within the struggling London property market, saw sales drop by a third. James says its IT system, created during the early noughties at a cost of £2 million, initially helped create Foxtons’ success by freeing up its talented but famously ruthless staff to concentrate on the sell, automating almost everything else years before most other competitor agents had developed anything similar. James, who used to work at Foxtons, says the company has “developed itself into a corner” by creating a system that no else uses or can plug into, and that while most other agents now use CRM systems that they can ‘plug and play’ the latest innovative products, Foxtons is left with an inward-looking bespoke system and left to play catch-up. A case in point is the lettings maintenance management software Fixflo which James’s company Proptech consult helped integrate into Connells’ and Countrywide’s systems, but which would struggle to be added to Foxtons’. “[This] leaves them at a competitive disadvantage…
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Former Foxtons agent launches rental app for sharers
A proptech company has launched in London offering a rental app for house hunting couples and sharers and an assisted property finder service. Called The Urban Collective, its unusual service is focussed initially on the London rental market but says it will soon expand beyond the capital to other cities and areas of the UK. The company’s founders, who include a couple with a background in Fintech and a former Foxtons lettings agent, say research suggests a third of house hunters who look for property as a group or a couple find the process much more painful than when doing it alone. The Urban Collective decided to create the UrbanCo app for the Apple’s IOS platform. It enables couples or groups to chat, comment and share links, images, videos and viewings feedback – based on the app’s own listings. Unlike traditional portal-style listings, the company says, its properties will be searchable by lifestyle options as well as price and location – such as proximity to gyms or tube stations. Sherpa service And for the wealthier end of the lettings market who are cash rich but time poor, The Urban Collective has launched a ‘Sherpa’ service. For a fee, wannabe tenants are put…
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Latest property news
Foxtons revenues down by 25% during Q1
Foxtons revenues across its three core areas of business fell during the first three months of the year compared to the same period of 2016, the company has revealed. Commission from sales sank by 44.5% from £20m to £11.1 million, lettings revenues were down slightly from £15.8m to £15.5m and mortgage broking fees fell by £500,000 to £2.1m. The company says the dramatic drop in sales revenue has been created by last year’s rush by landlords and second homes buyers to buy properties before the Stamp Duty increase deadlines. This has left a sizeable hole in its first quarter 2017 group revenues which dropped by 25% from £38.4m last year to £28.7m. But Foxtons’ board says this was “expected”. Sales commission Similar reductions in revenue particularly from sales commissions reported in its 2016 accounts were said by Foxtons chairman Garry Watts to be caused by a substantial reduction in transactions in London, driven principally by rising house prices, stamp duty changes and the EU referendum. The results have pushed the company’s strategy off-course somewhat – it’s stated aim to investors for some time now has been to target “higher-volume, higher-value residential property markets within London”. Its shares on the London…
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