Agents

Foxtons chief executive Nic Budden was awarded a bonus of £218,000 last year, despite the estate agent reporting plunging revenues and profits and warning of a tough 2018. The upmarket estate agent paid 50-year-old Budden £914,000 in 2017, comprising salary, bonus, pension and other factors. That was down from £982,000 in 2016. News of the bonus…

Shares of online estate agent Purplebricks might be on the road to recovery, but this is failing to win over analysts and commentators. Popular investor site The Motley Fool has recommended selling the stock, primarily because of its valuation. The shares currently trade on 14.5 times sales and a huge 247 times 2018/19 forecast earnings. Property…

Online estate agency Yopa has introduced a “no sale, no fee” option for customers selling their home through the firm. If sellers choose this option and the agency finds a buyer, Yopa will charge a flat rate fee of either £1,495 or £2,695 depending on where the customer lives. Those choosing to stick with Yopa's traditional fee structure will pay…

It is never easy to be sure when a market has bottomed out, yet I am increasingly confident that the prime central London market is on an upward trend. January saw numerous deals agreed, largely because of the underlying feeling that the market is on the turn. I have had several conversations with other colleagues in the industry who also…

An estate agent has come up with a unique way to cope with the UK’s slow property market: list properties on Airbnb. Hunters is using Airbnb to make money while it waits for homes to sell. It has started renting out properties through short-stay websites such as Booking.com and ­Expedia. According to the Telegraph, Hunters has carried out a trial…

Countrywide’s chief executive Alison Platt has quit her role just a week after the company issued its second profit warning within three months. Peter Long, the group’s newly appointed executive chairman, said Platt’s departure was a result of the company’s poor trading. He told Reuters: “We have lost our way in sales and lettings ... she (Platt)…

An agent in London has come up with a novel way of matching wannabe homeowners with properties: a “spot the ball” competition. Your Laddr, which offers houses as competition prizes, is offering a £3.2 million Knightsbridge home and a £56,000 car to the winner of its guessing game. The entry fee is just £10 plus a 25p booking fee. To win the…

Economic uncertainty and squeezed household budgets haven’t put Londoners off daydreaming about property, judging by the mega-mansions that have made it into Rightmove’s top 10 most viewed properties. The most viewed home for sale in London in 2017 was a 10-bedroom mega-mansion with basement cinema, 1,250-bottle temperature-controlled wine vault,…

This article was sponsored by our partners at ZPG.  Four major trends were highlighted in ZPG’s State of the Nation report as having a significant role in reshaping the property market and threatening the traditional high street agent’s business model: changing consumer expectations the rise in online agents the shifting economic outlook and…