Savills
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Latest property news
UK takes lustre off gleaming Savills half year results
Savills half year results have revealed global turnover up by 15% to £714m and underlying profits were up 27% to to £32.4m. But an otherwise glowing half year report by the company was offset by poor results from its UK operation, where underlying profits dropped by 27% to £5.4 million. Its UK fee income dipped by 4% to £55 million down from £57.2 million and like many of its competitors Savills blames the surge of purchases before the additional Stamp Duty was introduced during 2016 for the lower volumes within the prime residential market compared to last year. Other factors Savills blames include the political and economic uncertainty created by the General Election and Brexit which, it says “make it difficult to predict market volumes for the rest of the year”. Savills said a weak April was offset by a stronger May and June compared to last year, although this is because those months last year were “muted” by the run up to the EU Referendum vote. Worst performing Within the UK prime property market the worst performing sector was new homes in which new development stock dropped by 6% and prices dipped by 4% to an average of £750,000. This compares…
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Latest property news
YOPA claims hybrid agents will handle 50% of sales by 2020
Online hybrid estate agent YOPA has announced that it has raised a further £15 million from investors including the Daily Mail’s parent company DMGT and Grosvenor Hill Ventures, the investment arm of Savills. The company has also made some punchy claims within the statement accompanying the news of its Series B funding, which follows the £16 million investment Savills made in the agency in June last year. This includes that its market share is increasing rapidly and that hybrid agents like it and Purplebricks will handle 50% of all sales by 2020. YOPA, whose founders are Daniel Attia, Andrew Barclay, David Jacobs and Alistair Barclay (pictured LtoR), also claims that the hybrid agency is one of the “country’s top three agents for successful property sale” based on percentages of sales agreed against listing data from Rightmove data. YOPA has a national network of 75 local agents who work exclusively with the company but are freelance not employees, plans to use the new investment to double the number of agents working for it by the end of this year. “After a strong first quarter of trading, we are delighted to have closed our Series B round of funding,” says Daniel Attia, co-founder…
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Latest property news
Savills wins Appeal Court case over unpaid £150,000 commission
It has been revealed that Savills has won an Appeal Court case and is now due a commission of some £150,000 for the sale of Mill Ride Estate near Ascot in Berkshire, which sold for early £7 million in 2012. The estate used to be land and stables but during the 1990s was laid out as a golf course with a clubhouse (pictured). It was bought by Sidemanor Ltd in 2003, a company owned by London and Argyll-based businessman Peter Blacker (pictured, left) Savills were instructed to sell the property in 2012 and produced several valuations ranging from £2.5m to £10m, the higher of which assumed that planning permission could be gained for a large detached residence within the estate’s grounds, and vacant possession of a cottage. Savills also produced a document outlining what was to be sold including how, should the property sell, they would be due to a fee. This included the recommendation that the estate be sold via “private treaty” and that “we suggest that the estate is offered for sale as soon as planning consent has been granted and we advise that the marketing is initially carried out on a very private basis,” said Savills director…
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Latest property news
Savills snaps up Buckinghamshire independent
Savills is on the acquisition trail again after a three-month gap following its purchase of Marlow, Buckinghamshire independent estate agent Granville Residential, taking its number of offices in the UK to 90. The company last bought a rival when it snapped up single-branch agent Montague Evans Channel Islands based in Guernsey in January, and before that the purchase of the Smiths Gore mainly rural network of 31 branches for £40m in April 2015. Lettings specialist Granville Residential is a single-branch agent with a prominent branch position on the town’s West Street (pictured, above) and was founded in 1991 as a lettings-only specialist, like many of its kind it has subsequently gone on to offer sales too. The purchase will add to Savills network of offices in the area including existing branches in Windsor, Henley-on-Thames, Beaconsfield and Amersham. The purchase, Savills says, is part of push to invest in its lettings division, which is headed up by Jane Cronwright-Brown (pictured, below). “The branch will be rebranding entirely as a Savills branch and all its customers have been contacted to let them know about the change-over the Savills brand,” she told The Negotiator. “We are delighted to have completed on the purchase and very…
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Latest property news
Go-to estate agent employer for graduate applicants revealed
Savills has been named Graduate Employer of Choice in a survey of over 20,000 applicants by The Times newspaper. Competitors JLL were placed second and Knight Frank third. The awards were held last week in London and presented by Martin Birchall from specialist market research company High Fliers. This is the 11th time that Savills has won the accolade from the newspaper, which also recently placed the company 94th in the UK within its other graduate rankings scheme, Top 100 Graduate Employers. This was the first time the company has been included in the list, which is topped by accounting giant PwC, and makes it the only agent to get into the rankings this year. Savills is coy about how much it pays its annual 170-strong graduate intake, but website Glassdoor.co.uk reckons Savills pays starter associates £36,275. Knight Frank pays £37, 169, the website says, and JLL approximately £31,000. Mark Ridley, CEO of Savills UK and Europe (pictured), says: “To have secured this award for the eleventh consecutive year is a tremendous achievement and one of which we are incredibly proud. “Furthermore, this prestigious recognition underlines the importance we place on offering a first class programme that provides our graduates…
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Latest property news
In a nutshell: the property share price freefall
If the share price of the UK’s residential stockmarket-listed corporates are the bellwether of the industry’s future health then estate agents should be battening down the hatches. Investors in London’s stock exchange clearly think Brexit, the recent Stamp Duty increases and last week’s letting fees ban are going to make selling or renting homes harder and less profitable in the coming months. Share prices have dropped alarmingly. Compared to a year ago when Brexit was still only a possibility, Countrywide’s share price is down by 52%, Foxtons by 37%, LSL Property Services by 33%, Belvoir Lettings by 15.7% and Savills by 13.9%. Even the industry’s digital superstars, so beloved of the City in recent years, have taken substantial hits including Purplebricks (-31%) and Rightmove (-11%) although Zoopla, whose model has helped its share price grow since August, is only down by half a percent as is Belvoir Lettings. Savills has also done better during the recent bloodbath which UBS analyst Heidi Richardson says is because the stockmarket knows only 9% of its sales come from selling homes in the UK. Purplebricks survived the lettings fees ban much better than its more traditional competitors after rushing out a statement that the…
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Latest property news
Hey, young man? YOPA hires Village People for TV campaign
On first viewing the new TV advertising campaign by hybrid agency YOPA looks like a good idea, but will many of the target audience – 30-somethings looking to save on their house move – recognise the stars featured in it? YOPA, which clearly has cash to spend following Savills’ recent £16m investment in the business, has filmed three ads featuring 1970s/1980s disco group Village People – best known for their hits In The Navy and Y.M.C.A. During the first ad which is now on TV the six ageing members of the group are shown discussing whether to ‘move on’ while sat around a kitchen table. Two more ads are to be aired later this year. “The concept of The Village People needing a helping hand to move on proved irresistible for these ads,” says Daniel Attia, co-founder of YOPA (pictured, left). “Aside from the comedy that the situation presents, it’s a message that fundamentally rings true: so many of us delay moving home because the process is so stressful, not to mention hugely expensive.” YOPA started out as an online-only agent and its acronym used to stand for ‘Your Online Property Agent’ but in August last year it changed its business model…
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Features
The battle for North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire has become a battleground for dominance among the portals, says Nigel Lewis.
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Agencies & People
YOPA gets investment from Savills
Now Savills joins the internet set, by buying into online agent YOPA.
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Agencies & People
Stock options
Buy, sell, hold? Overperforming, underperforming – what does it mean when Rightmove shares go up, or Barratt falls out of bed?
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