Richard Donnell
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Latest property news
COVID has cost agents £38 million in lost commission so far
Figure is based on latest research that shows 127,000 homes worth £27 billion are not been sold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Latest property news
Home buyer activity surges to pre-Coronavirus levels, latest research shows
Zoopla says estate agents are enjoying extraordinary boom in housing market revival, but warns spike is likely to be temporary.
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Latest property news
373,000 SSTC properties waiting for Coronavirus lockdown to end
Zoopla says its research shows that property worth £82 billion is stuck within the frozen housing market, which corresponds approximately to £1.47 billion in sales commission.
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Movers & Shakers
Gráinne Gilmore joins Zoopla as Head of Research
Gráinne Gilmour has joined Zoopla from Knight Frank, where she was a Partner and Head of UK Residential Research.
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Latest property news
Sales agreed plummet by 70% since lock-down, market snapshot reveals
Zoopla says that although activity is falling off a cliff, sales continue and a mass withdrawal of properties from the market has failed to materialise.
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Latest property news
Property sales market ‘not come to a complete standstill yet’
Zoopla says its latest cities index shows activity down by only 15% week-on-week but paints a gloomy picture for the coming months as sales agreed dip by nearly two thirds, it predicts.
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Our Events
The Negotiator Conference & Expo 2019
The grand halls and corridors of London’s Grosvenor Hotel on Park Lane were buzzing with hundreds of delegates, speakers and exhibitors on the 29th November 2019, as they arrived to join The Negotiator Conference 2019. In this stunning venue, with a reputation for first class guest speakers and panel sessions offering hard hitting debate between property leaders such as Michael Stoop, Nick Leeming, Lucy Morton, Lord Best, Peter Bolton King and David Cox (plus many more), The Negotiator Conference stage was ready. Lord Best drew gasps from the audience when he suggested that the end of the small or ‘accidental’ landlord is nigh, that the PRS will increasingly be supplied by larger-portfolio operators. The focus was the property industry in 2020 – exploring what the future holds for sales and letting agents in today’s volatile business environment, including Brexit, regulation, customer hesitation, technology, online agents, diminishing high street footfall, taxation, money laundering, tenant fees and (the then) looming General Election. Brilliantly chaired by The Times columnist Lord Daniel Finkelstein OBE, speakers included leading estate agency senior management, industry consultants, analysts, regulators, industry association chiefs and tech innovators. Going to conferences is more than just listening to debates and, as ever…
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Latest property news
Geordie cheer: Newcastle is last city to regain its pre-2007 house prices
The portal says Newcastle was the last city to cross the threshold, albeit some ten years behind its southern counterparts including London, Oxford and Cambridge.
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Latest property news
Knight Frank loses fourth senior player to online in as many months
Latest to leave is Gráinne Gilmour who headed up its UK research and analysis operation before revealing she has moved to Zoopla in a role created for her by the portal.
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Latest property news
Unfair imbalance? Agents earn £3.9bn from fees but HMRC takes £9.4bn in Stamp Duty
Research by Zoopla has revealed the total earned by agents every year in fees from sales and lettings, highlighting how it pales into insignificance compared to the Stamp Duty paid by home movers to HMRC. The company’s Research and Insights Director Richard Donnell (left) told delegates at Friday’s Negotiator Conference that while buyers, renters, landlords and vendors combined spend £3.9 billion on agency fees every year, the government collects £9.27 billion in residential Stamp Duty, or nearly two-and-a-half times as much. The duty is also increasing; HMRC’s latest figures show that last year the amount of duty paid on average by purchasers increased by 7%, largely due to the increases duty for properties in the higher price brackets. Stamp Duty problems Agents have become increasingly vocal about the problems that Stamp Duty is creating, particularly in the £500,000-plus sales market, including lower sales and greater difficulties getting buyers to make an offer as they baulk at the huge Stamp Duty bill. This, economists agents and politicians have been pointing out, is an example of the famous Laffer Curve. It is a theory made popular during the 1980s in the US and it argues that there is a point at which…
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