Agents

Foxtons swung to a £2.5 million loss before tax in the first half of the year, with overall revenue falling 9% to £53 million. The estate agent, which made a £3.8 million profit a year ago, blamed declining sales on “ongoing weakness in the London sales market”. Foxtons has cut its interim dividend from 0.43p per share to zero. Foxtons’ sales…

Triplerr, an estate agency portal that is harnessing the power of so-called “voice leads”, is seeking to raise £750,000 from investors ahead of a London launch. The digital portal, which is already operational in Dubai and New York, has set up a campaign on funding platform Seedrs to drive its expansion. The firm offers a free-to-list,…

Wealthy buyers in London are increasingly shunning luxury homes for cut-price dilapidated properties in the hopes of making a tidy profit. Buying agency Black Brick, which identified the trend, said buyers are looking to find the best possible deal on their London home, enabling them to achieve better value for money and the potential of long-term…

Southend-on-Sea is the UK’s top property hotspot in the 21st century, with average prices soaring by 287.1% since January 2000. The analysis by online estate agents HouseSimple.com reveals the Essex coastal town of Southend-On-Sea has seen faster property price increases than any other town or city outside London. Four out of five of the biggest…

A buying agent has created an advert on Zoopla for a supposed billionaire client who is seeking a mansion in London. Expensive Properties has listed an eight-bed detached house for sale in Kensington Palace Gardens, under which it has written: “Wanted similar house for billionaire. Full information available on request.” The client apparently has a…

Fredrik Eklund, a real estate broker at Douglas Elliman and star of TV show Million Dollar Listing New York, is selling his apartment in New York for $6.5 million (£4.7 million). Eklund bought the apartment at 290 West Street with his husband, artist Derek Kaplan, in 2014. He announced on his Instagram that they’re seeking a new tenant for the…

Estate agents rightly or wrongly, are not held in high regard by many members of the general public. This fact, coupled with the plethora of characters that inhabit the sector potentially has the makings of television programming gold, a situation that did not go unnoticed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), who also recognized that…

The government is cracking down on the practice of gazumping and introducing new measures that aim to professionalise the estate agency industry. Estate agents will be required to hold a professional qualification and be transparent about fees for referrals to solicitors, surveyors and mortgage brokers. The changes will also encourage the use of…

Online estate agent Purplebricks is set to speed up its overseas expansion after receiving a £125 million investment from Axel Springer. The German publisher and property portal owner has bought an 11.5% stake in Purplebricks, which will be used to fund a faster roll-out of the hybrid agency in the US, prepare for entry into new markets and improve…