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A summer of fundraising for BHF
Cycling around London in the wee small hours on a summer’s night? Why not? “The 2018 London Night Rider event in aid of British Heart Foundation (BHF) had to be done,” said Stuart Manchester from The Property Shop in Brighton.
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UK housing market is “uninspiring” says RICS
RICS UK housing market report shows that new buyer enquiries are in decline as new instructions rise.
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Valerie Bannister appointed as Your Move Lettings Compliance Director
Your Move has announced that Your Move’s Lettings Director, Valerie Bannister, has taken up a newly created role as Lettings Compliance Director across Your Move and Reeds Rains.
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Referral fees are under threat
The National Trading Standards Estate Agency Team (NTSEAT) has today launched a survey to find out how widespread the use of referral fees from solicitors, surveyors, financial advisors and removal firms is among estate agents. It says the results of the survey will be fed into the Government’s ongoing investigation into referral fees. The survey asks agents to anonymously divulge whether they take such fees from these kinds of third parties, and whether they think referral fees should be retained, made more transparent, or banned. NTSEAT’s survey has the backing of both The Property Ombudsman and the Property Redress Scheme and follows the government’s recent call for evidence by a working group set up by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. “The responses [so far] to whether government should take further action to enforce current transparency regulations regarding the disclosure of referral fees were overwhelmingly supportive,” says James Munro, Head of NTSEAT (pictured, left) “But at the inaugural meeting, it was decided that more information was required from agents about the nature of the fees they currently receive. The results of this survey will feed into the working group.” Reassurance Agents who think it might be a bad idea…
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Tenant creditworthiness platform CreditLadder passes 1,000-branch mark
Rental payment recognition platform CreditLadder says it now has over 1,000 letting agent branches who have tenants on the service, making it the most widely available in the UK’s rapidly growing market for creditworthiness improvement, it claims. Started up in 2016 and based in London, until recently CreditLadder was alone in the private rented sector but it’s been joined by several competitors since after, in December 2017, HM Treasury announced a £2 million Rent Recognition Challenge to help kickstart innovation within the creditworthiness sector. These include Bud, Canopy, MoveMe and RentalStep, all of which are now involved in a feisty battle for market share, and a slice of the £2 million government funding. As The Negotiator reported last month, Canopy recently signed a deal with the John Lewis Partnership to help its employees improve their credit scores. Rent default Many of these services, including CreditLadder, claim their service helps letting agents differentiate themselves in crowded rental markets, enables agents to offer landlords a ‘value add’ to their service, and that tenants using them are less likely to default on their rent. This helps agents and landlords attract more reliable renters, it is claimed. “We’ve always believed good behaviour should…
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High Court gives green light to Judicial Review of Right to Rent
A High Court judge has given a charity permission to challenge the government on its flagship immigration policy Right to Rent.
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Do online valuation tools create unrealistic house price expectations?
The first thing most sellers want to know is what their home is worth, so, says Joanne Christie, what is the real value to agents of online valuation tools?
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Leading estate agent changes website after complaint to advertising watchdog
Edinburgh-based MOV8 agrees to amend copy after complaint that its fixed estate agency fee claim may have been misleading.
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Lock up your data!
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is imminent – the new regulations come into force on 25th May. Workshops are filling up, consultants’ diaries are blocked out, yet, says, Andrea Kirkby, some agents haven’t started preparing for compliance.
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Google gathers senior estate agency for invite-only digital seminar
After a nearly ten-year hiatus tech giant Google appears to have begun re-engaging face-to-face with the property industry. During the late noughties there was an outcry when it appeared that Google might begin targeting consumers directly and cut out agents from the property selling and renting process, although this was denied by the tech giant at the time. Nevertheless, the Californian-based online search firm subsequently scaled down its attempts to court the ‘for sale by owner’ sector and concentrated instead on other markets, much to the relief of agents. But now it’s back. The tech giant this week opened the doors of its UK head office to host a meeting of estate agents to mull over how to get instructions online. One of Google’s more senior UK executives, Harvard-educated Roxanne Brownlee (pictured), who works with larger, high-growth clients, did the presenting. Google, along with digital agency Fountain and 24/7 live managed live chat firm Yomdel, also offered up online strategies to help combat the challenges of competition from online hybrid agents, the privacy issues created by GDPR and Brexit. And Fountain should know – it helped hybrid agency Ewemove achieve rapid growth during its start-up phase. “Yomdel and Fountain began…
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