Hatched
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Latest property news
Online agent YOPA investigated again by advertising watchdog
Online agent YOPA has been investigated by the advertising watchdog just two weeks after being reported for potentially misleading claims on its website. This time the London-based sales and lettings agency was reported by a member of the public for a mailshot sent to them that advertised its sales service but, they claimed, wasn’t clearly marked as marketing material. After being approached by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), YOPA has now promised not to repeat the mailshot and that future advertising of this kind would be clearly marked as such in future. YOPA has been reported five times since it started two years ago including three times this year and once in 2016 and 2015 all of which have been informally resolved, although this hasn’t deterred investors – both Savills and LSL have put substantial amounts of money into the firm. Online agents Among the online agents, Emoov leads the pack for complaints to the ASA with ten referred to the watchdog so far including two serious complaints, one of which was upheld and another upheld in part, and eight informally resolved cases. Not far behind it is Purplebricks, which has had been referred to the ASA nine times including…
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Latest property news
First time buyers are back in the market
First time buyers are back with a vengeance borrowing £5.9 billion in June, up 26% on June and 9% on the same month in 2016, the Council of Mortgage Lenders latest figures show. The increase is on the back of first time buyers taking out 36,000 loans in June, 22% more than the month before. The increase is more than a blip. Figures from the CML, which is soon to be renamed UK Finance, show that during the second quarter of this year first time buyer borrowing increased by 18% taking out 91,400 loans. “June’s figures show a busy month in the mortgage market, with home movers having their highest monthly activity levels for over a year and an especially high number of loans for first time buyers,” says Paul Smee, Head of Mortgages at UK Finance (pictured, left). “But there are also signs of a softening market and we are not anticipating that this performance will be sustained in the second half of 2017.” Home buyer borrowing also jumped during July, increasing by 26% month-on-month and 15% year-on-year although buy-to-let borrowing remains subdued, but still rising, by 3% both by month and year comparisons. The CML data also reveals that…
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Latest property news
Hatched founder joins easyProperty as Head of Operations
Adam Day, the founder of online estate agency Hatched.co.uk has joined easyProperty.com as its Head of Operations, just 15 months after Hatched was bought by Connells. On his Linkedin profile Adam lists himself as “taking a break” in between leaving Hatched earlier this month and joining easyProperty, although in December last year Adam was on a recruitment for more Hatched agents, saying it was an “exciting time to join our business as we continue to build on the successes of previous years”. Adam (pictured, right) has joined easyProperty to set up the systems and procedures that will transform the website from an exclusively consumer-facing operation into the geographically licensed B2B offering that easyProperty CEO Jon Cooke describes as “the convergence of high street agency with online sales and lettings”. And Adam has his work cut out – easyProperty expects to relaunch in September this year. £60m deal with GPEA Adam’s arrival at easyProperty follows the £60m deal between the Guild of Professional Estate Agents and easyProperty to merge earlier this month and that 270-plus GPEA members have signed up so far to be easyProperty licensees out of a potential pool of 800. In return for a fee, easyProperty is licensing…
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Latest property news
Hatched says Connells cash has helped it double in size
Online-only estate agency Hatched says it has doubled the size of its size of its headcount including local consultants and head office team since it was acquired by Connells Group in November 2015. Hatched say it is now on a further recruitment drive and is looking for “ambitious property professionals” to help expand its network of regional offices and consultants. The company has nine regional or local offices in Leeds, Preston, Guildford, Wigan, Bradford, Nottingham, Maidstone, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Exeter. It’s the latest development for the ten-year-old agency which operates a network of directly employed consultants who work from home, rather than using self-employed agents as Purplebricks does, and claims to have been the first hybrid agency to have targeted former high street agents to join its team since it first began recruiting in 2010. “It’s an exciting time to join our business as we continue to build on the successes of previous years, with the immense support of Connells Group that we have had throughout 2016,” says Adam Day (pictured), who started the company after eight years after working at Hertfordshire agency Country Properties, where he was branch manager. “This is an opportunity for entrepreneurial individuals to have true…
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Agencies & People
Signs of change
Purplebricks, EasyProperty, Hatched – online agents are snaffling all the headlines, giving the Martian, arriving from space in January, the idea that traditional estate agencies have been consigned to history. Purplebricks says it will float on the AIM market for £230 million, easyProperty has now banked funding totaling £39.25 million and Sequence has paid an undisclosed but ‘significant’ sum to acquire Hatched, saving them the trouble of creating their own ‘online’ brand. Traditional agents need to research the competition and maybe adjust their services to survive – and thrive. The figures are eye-watering; massive faith in unproved businesses, dramatic headlines about how much sellers will save, gleeful predictions of the imminent death of ‘rip-off agents.’ But is it real? Is that nosy house-hunting Martian going to find defunct estate agencies on every high street? Is he going to find thousands of listings for homes on online agency sites? CEO of easyProperty, Rob Ellice, says, “This new, very substantial investment is a significant step for easyProperty; the most widely recognised consumer brand in a very fragmented estate agency market.” However, since the orange fanfare blew 15 months ago, there has been a lot of noise, but when you visit their website,…
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Agencies & People
Connells Group hatches online plan
The national estate agency group Connells has jumped into the online agency world with the acquisition of Hatched.co.uk. Hatched – one of the original pioneers of the online estate agency model – is, says Connells, aligned with its “ambitious growth strategy to extend its presence in the UK property market.” This purchase follows the recent acquisition of 18 branch Gascoigne Halman with offices in Cheshire and south Manchester. While other corporate agencies have made noises about online agency acquisitions, this is the first major deal. Connells say that Hatched will ‘bring complementary capabilities including first-hand knowledge and experience of this developing sector.” It will also expand Connells into towns and cities not currently covered by its existing estate agency operation. Hatched will continue to trade under its existing brand with founder and managing director Adam Day remaining in charge of operations. “We are pleased to welcome into the Group such an innovative business and well established player in the online space,” says Connells Group CEO, David Livesey (left). “The acquisition of Hatched represents a natural progression towards further enhancing our online proposition and wholly complements our strategy to expand our high street footprint. We are entirely committed to our branch…
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