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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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The big buy-to-let bounce
Designs on Property tracks and summarises the monthly property indices. Kate Faulkner says, “The Chancellor’s increase in Stamp Duty for buy-to-let properties caused a massive leap in activity.”
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UK rents continue to rise
Rents on new tenancies rose across most parts of the UK over the three months to February, led by gains in the capital, fresh figures show.
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Regional rents close the gap on London
Private rents in London are rising at their slowest rate for two years, the HomeLet Rental Index reports, prompting questions over whether tenants are close to reaching an affordability ceiling in the capital. The average new tenancy monthly rent in London signed over the three months to January 2016 was £1,510, HomeLet’s data shows, 6.2 per cent higher than in the same period 12 months ago; the slowest rate of rental inflation seen since March 2014. Rents in other areas have increased more quickly. Across the South-East (excluding London), rents on new tenancies rose by 7.2 per cent over this period. In the East Midlands, rents rose by 6.8 per cent. The slower rental inflation in the capital means the gap between the rate of increase in the capital and in the rest of the UK, where rent rises averaged 5.5 per cent over the three months, has narrowed to just 0.7 percentage points, the smallest gap since last April. In October, when London rents were rising at 7.5 per cent a year, this gap stood at four per cent. This convergence between London and the rest of the UK may suggest that the much faster rental inflation seen in…
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Crowded house
Designs on Property tracks and summarises the monthly property indices. Kate Faulkner says, “Supply is probably the single most feared issue in the property market. Buyer demand is strong, but the supply simply isn’t coming through. Agents may have to find ways of attracting new instructions.”
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UK rents increase
Rents on new tenancies rose across most parts of the UK over the three months to January, led by gains in the South East of England and the East Midlands, but growth continued to slow in the capital, new figures show. Fresh data from the latest HomeLet Rental Index reveals that rent prices for new tenancies in Greater London increased by 6.2 per cent in the three months to January 2016 compared to the corresponding period in 2015, marking the slowest rate of growth seen in Greater London since March 2014. “It’s notable that there has been a further fall in the rate at which average rents in the Greater London area are rising. In recent years, the capital has seen much faster rates of increase than the rest of the country, but it may be that an affordability ceiling has now been reached in London,” said Martin Totty (left), Barbon Insurance Group’s Chief Executive Officer. In contrast, rent prices in other regions continue to increase steadily with the South East of England and the East Midlands witnessing the highest rent price rises in the three months to January 2016, at 7.2 per cent and 6.8 per cent respectively. In…
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National figures mask regional variations
Rents rose in 10 out of 12 regions last year, the latest data from the monthly HomeLet Rental Index reveals, but the headline figures mask some very significant regional variations, with certain towns, cities and regions registering much greater increases than others. Rents on new tenancies signed outside of London in Q4 were 4.9 per cent higher than in the same period of 2014, HomeLet’s figures show; the figure for the capital was 8.0 per cent. As a result, the average rent on a home outside London now is £739; at £1,523 in the capital – it is more than twice as high. As in previous years, Greater London saw faster rent increases than any other region, though the South-East wasn’t far behind, with a rise of 7 per cent. Rents on new tenancies signed in the East Midlands, the next best performing region, were up 6.4 per cent. On the other hand, average rents fell by 5.1 per cent last year in the North-West and by 0.6 per cent in Northern Ireland. HomeLet has also studied rent increases in leading towns and cities across the UK, finding that Brighton and Bristol saw higher rent rises than any other locations…
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Frozen Britain
Report Headlines Rightmove: “Home-owner confidence sets the scene for higher prices in 2016.” NAEA: “Sales to first time buyers highest in six years.” RICS: “No easing in supply constraint.” Nationwide: “Slight softening in house price growth in November.” Home.co.uk: “Stock of property for sale hits new low.” Hometrack: “Prices accelerate in large regional cities.” Land Registry: “October data shows a monthly price increase of 0.4 per cent.” Kate says: “The property market used to be relatively easy to predict from a business perspective. Things were often quiet for the first few weeks of January then the rush began to the end of May, quiet-ish summers, a flurry of activity post summer holidays and a quietening down to Christmas. Not anymore! Since the credit crunch, from one month to the next, we are never quite sure what is going to happen. This difficulty in forecasting the short and long term future of the property market from an industry perspective is now exacerbated by one government housing announcement after another, many of which are being made at too short notice, causing mayhem in the market! The main game changer though, is that both George Osborne (Chancellor) and Mark Carney (Governor of the…
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