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‘Bank of mum and dad’ backed first time buyers driving property market, it is claimed
If you’re wondering which way the property market is moving, then be heartened by the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). It says that while the number of home loans dropped 1% year-on-year, the number of first-time buyer loans has increased by 9%, driven in part by parents re-mortgaging to help their offspring get on the property ladder, it has been claimed. The number of first time borrowers in the market hit 337,000 last year, the highest level in any twelve month period since the financial crash of 2008, the CML says. Re-mortgaging activity in the property market increased by 54% between December last year and January this year, and although this is driven in part by competition among lenders to offer lower and lower rates, agent Haart says it’s also driven by ‘bank of mum and dad’ parents. “We are seeing more and more parents on the ground looking to release equity in their homes to support increasing numbers of young people who are leaning on their parents for support to get onto the property ladder,” says Haart’s CEO Paul Smith (pictured, left). “With rents sent to increase as landlords are squeezed, and ONS figures showing that house prices have reached 10 times the average…
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Pastoral Real Estates new sales office
The new sales office on 11 Curzon Street is a welcome addition to their business.
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Agent spend on Rightmove tops £10,000 a year
Profits at Rightmove jumped by 18% last year, the company’s final results published this morning reveal, helped by charging agents on average an extra £88 a month. This took average spend to £842 a month or £10,104 a year (see graph, right) Operating profits rose from £137.2 million in 2015 to £161.6 million in 2016, helping boost earnings per share by 21%. All the dials on the Rightmove ship twitched upwards including revenue, which increased by 15% to £220 million including £168.3 million from agents, £33.9 million from new homes developers and £17.8 million from other sources. The report says the number of agents and developers advertising with the portal increased by 2% during 2016 to 20,121. It also highlights the listings gap between it and Zoopla, as Rightmove says it listed a million properties last year, a third more than ‘any other portal’. “Rightmove continues to be the place that home movers turn to first, with nearly 1.5 billion visits in 2016, up 10% on last year,” says outgoing CEO Nick McKittrick (pictured). “Home movers spent nearly a billion minutes every month searching and researching homes on Rightmove, the only place you can see almost the entire UK property market. “Our…
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Revealed: what estate agency websites should REALLY be about
Is your website dynamic? Jane Gardner says that it should be… and it can be! With her estate agency experience, Jane has some great advice.
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Bad press? Just don’t say “No comment!”
In any business things can and do go wrong. Property PR expert, Jerry Lyons, shares his views on how to avoid a small drama becoming a crisis.
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Cheffins’ New Strategic Framework
Multi-disciplinary property and auctioneering business, Cheffins, has announced a new corporate framework to accelerate its growth...
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PLATFORM_ expands
Platform has appointed British Land’s former residential head as its new Chief Executive.
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Nick Dunning buys up 26-branch Townends and Regents network
Former Countrywide director Nick Dunning has bought the parent company of high street agents Townends and Regents for an undisclosed sum. The purchase was made through his recently-established company Nick Dunning Associates, which he set up after leaving Countrywide where he was its commercial director. His role there was to run its highly profitable lettings business, but he also operated an aggressively acquisitional programme, buying up 100 businesses during his tenure at the PLC. Nick’s latest business purchase is of Badger Holdings Group, which has 26 branches in London and the Home Counties and two brands. “The Badger Holdings Group is an extremely well run business with an excellent reputation and a solid record of profitability,” says Nick Dunning (pictured). “It is a great platform from which to grow our business in London and the Home Counties. “We will be looking for the management team to drive growth organically in all its business divisions but also through strategic acquisitions and expanding their branch footprint.” Badger Holdings Group’s management team including CEO Seamus Kavanagh will be remaining “to drive the business forward”, says Nick Dunning. Nick Dunning Associates has a sizeable fighting fund to buy up letting agents across the UK…
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Housing supply remains the problem
Kate’s view on individual indices Rightmove: Useful to measure average time to sell and sellers’ sentiment. Nationwide: Measures mortgaged property prices and affordability across the UK. Halifax: Measures mortgaged prices and produces individual research, ie seaside towns. NAEA: Tracks first time buyer sales and provides supply/demand figures from agents. RICS: Excellent for supply/demand analysis and on forecasting the market. BBA: Provides a huge amount of data on the economy/prices/transactions and financing. Agency Express: Analyses for sale/sold board, good for ‘current’ market trends. Hometrack: City analysis across the UK and compares current prices annually and quarterly. LSL: Analyses Land Registry figures, separates out London, good analysis on transactions. THE NATIONAL MARKET Latest National Market Movements Kate says: “The current market stats are all showing that property prices are up year on year and the increases are higher than the annual averages seen over the last ten years. This isn’t a huge surprise given that we’ve spent most of the last 10 years in a credit crunch, but property prices are now recovering. The surprise figure is the Halifax increase which is much higher than any others, suggesting an anomaly. Actual price increases are around 5-6 per cent year-on-year based on mortgaged…
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Rent rise slowdown mirrors sales market
Rents in almost every part of the UK are continuing to rise, new research from HomeLet reveals, but at a slower rate than in previous months – markedly slower than a year ago.
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