james davis
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Latest property news
Exclusive: Howsy buys Upad out of liquidation and re-employs staff
Howsy CEO Calum Brannan says the Upad brand and website will be operated as a complementary business and that the acquisition includes Upad's landlord database.
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Latest property news
Spare a thought for Upad’s founder, says leading industry figure
Viewber founder and former Douglas & Gordon director says running any property company in today's economic environment is stressful.
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Latest property news
Online lettings agency pioneer Upad shuts up shop
Ten-year old business that pioneered the online-only lettings business model has thrown in the towel and is no longer accepting new business from landlords.
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Latest property news
Why did Hammond continue his attack on landlords, wonders lettings industry
Read how several senior members of the lettings industry have spoken out following the 2018 budget to wonder why Hammond hates landlords.
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Latest property news
Upad changes its fee structure to reflect what ‘landlords really want’
This is the second time the online-only lettings agency has changed the way it charges landlords this year.
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Latest property news
Barclays awards two online lettings ‘disruptors’ with start-up gongs
Two property firms are winners within this year’s Barclays Entrepreneur Awards including Upad founder and landlord James Davis (pictured, right), who was named Start-Up Entrepreneur of the Year for the London region, and proptech firm brightLET, which during an earlier heat won Best Innovative Start-Up for the Midlands. The Upad award somewhat stretches the definition of a start-up business – Upad Ltd was incorporated in April 2008 – but a spokesperson told The Negotiator that the gong was awarded by the award’s panel of judges for its high-growth credentials instead. The judges included Cambridge Judge Business School, The Sunday Times, investment firm MMC Ventures and Barclays. The bank said James received the award because he had been the “driving force behind Upad’s phenomenal growth over the last two years”, commending him on the way he had “identified, and capitalised upon, a market opportunity”. “From day one, Upad was intended as a disruptor within the residential lettings market,” James said after the ceremony. “As a landlord myself I had witnessed how fragmented the market had become and felt sure that there was scope for significant improvement. “Upad was, therefore, born out of a belief that innovative and bespoke technology could more effectively…
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Latest property news
Here’s how much longer tenants are renting
Forty percent of tenants have been renting for four years or more, it has been revealed, highlighting the long-term ‘generation rent’ nature of the lettings market. The research, carried out by online agent Upad, also reveals that 13% of tenants are divorcees who have moved out of the marital home – a demographic described brutally recently in the Agents’s Diary blog – and that 90% of tenants are not currently looking to buy a home. Also, one in five tenants are previous home owners although there is one unusual group of tenants identified in the data – those who are renting in order to understand a neighbourhood better before they buy – and a quarter of tenants also say they prefer to rent because it offers flexibility as they move around with work. Renting The UK’s high house prices are bearing down on generation rent, the research shows; a quarter of tenants say they couldn’t afford a mortgage even if they wanted to buy a home. “The number of long-term tenants alongside those who have no desire to ever own a home further highlights the importance of landlords in the housing sector, and how they will remain so for many…
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Guest Blogs
Upad boss: traditional letting agents will soon go the way of Yellow Pages
Not only has our food, cars, insurance, retail shopping, and just about anything else you can think of been propelled forward into a technology-driven world. And so too has property. As companies like Amazon and Uber dominating their markets, so they are transforming the way customers buy goods and services. And now there’s proptech, the coined phrase for the collision of the property and technology worlds. This means landlords can no longer rely on outdated methods of finding people to rent their homes. Tenants, particularly those under 30 years old who are the largest demographic in the market, are searching online for their next home, not in agent’s shop windows. This shift not only paves the way for online agents like Upad it also means landlords need to become technology-savvy and up their game. Much as the Yellow Pages is a thing of the past, so traditional lettings services will soon be too as landlords turn to more manageable and cost-effective solutions for promoting their rental properties. Our research shows 92% of tenants go online to search for their next rental home and 91% said good photos where their number one concern. In a technology driven world, we want information…
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Agencies & People
Purplebricks kicks off in US with 3D viewings
Purplebricks has officially launched in the US seven months after it raised £50m from the City to fund its expansion over the pond. As announced in June, Purplebricks’ US launch has kicked off in California beginning in Los Angeles before being rolled out across the state and later other key states and cities across the US. Its American team, which is led by CEO Eric Eckardt, has also revealed its fee structure, which has been adapted to fit the US way of selling properties. Agents charge vendors a 5-6% fee to sell their home and then give up to 3% of their fee to the buying agent who successfully introduces a purchaser. Purplebricks is to instead charge vendors in the US a flat fee of $3,200 to list their homes, although they will have to pay the buying agent’s fee when the property is sold. As in the UK, vendors will be able to delay the up-front listing payment by effectively taking out a loan to fund it. But buyers who purchase their properties through Purplebricks without using a buying agent will receive a cash payment of $1,000 when they buy the property, effectively inducing purchasers to cut out buying…
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Latest property news
Online-only letting agency founder attacks Gumtree
Online only letting agent founder James Davis has launched a scathing attack on UK classifieds portal Gumtree. The site, which was established in 2000, is a significant player in the lettings sector with over 66,000 properties currently on its site, around three quarters of which are in London. Davis (pictured), whose Upad portal currently lists 880 property with Zoopla, says in a blog for a landlord website that that although still popular, he asks whether Gumtree is “about to be left behind as spam, adverts, and unreliable tenant leads flood its user base”. “Due to a laxer approach to posts and how they are moderated, [it] has become inundated with spammy and out-of-date ads,” he says. He also criticises its lack of sophistication, comparing it unfavourably to Rightmove and Zoopla’s refined user experience and highlighting Gumtree’s lack of local search functionality. The Upad CEO also thinks size matters. Davis criticises Gumtree because it “only attracts a small fraction of housing stock on the market at any one time”. Davis also questions the quality of Gumtree’s users. “Research by Upad found that the quality of enquiries from Gumtree users was lower than enquiries made via the leading online property portals,” he…
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