It’s been an interesting month in estate agency circles. Hamptons has been bought by Countrywide, the largest agency chain in the country. This adds a second upmarket name to their stable of brands with John D Wood already a part of the conglomerate. The 85 Hamptons offices being added to the existing 1200 branches will increase Countrywide’s reach across the country but it will be interesting to see how much of Hamptons individuality is left. The corporate firms have traditionally left the middle and top end of the market alone and stuck to lower value, high volume business.
Savills research department has been quoted twice in the national press suggesting that the top end of the market (particularly in London) may be rather exposed to a “second slide” and are said to be predicting a fall in prices of up to 4% in prime Central London during the second half of the year. We respectfully disagree.
As you will see in our market report, Tim des Forges has an armful of buyers left over from his sale of a flat in Kingston House North. Eight frustrated and disappointed cash buyers with nowhere to live! Tim is desperate for more property to sell and, until there is, he sees prices continuing to rise as a result of good old fashioned supply and demand.
Lucy Morton currently has some very substantial Lettings enquiries. She needs more top end houses to accommodate the influx of families coming in to London at the moment to settle in for the next school year. With rents increasing, she believes that this in turn will improve yields over the coming year.
The next bit of ‘news’ this month is that Google has started to advertise property both to let and for sale. As you would expect, Google’s entry is important but the offering looks weak at present with simple details and little quality control. However broad the offering is, sellers are unlikely to be able to find Tim’s eight underbidders and landlords will find it very hard to get to Lucy's blue chip tenants. Other portals have ‘time on the market’ indicators , will show you price reductions and offer both buyers and sellers, landlords and tenants a rewarding ‘experience’.
Google has stepped away from the position taken by the established property portals and is accepting listings from Sarah Beeny’s ‘For Sale By Owner’ web site designed for people who want to transact without an agent. In amongst the vast bulk of the listings from agents, there will therefore be properties from Ms Beeny's site not covered for instance by the Property Misdescriptions Act. Private sellers are not bound by the Act and if something goes wrong you can’t complain to an Ombudsman if they rip you off!
Sarah Beeny is reported to have said that 1,200 home owners who have used the site have sold this year. In one of the worst years on record, it’s worth remembering that last year some 850,000 properties sold across the UK.
There is no law in this country that forces you to use an estate agent but 98% of people do. Despite all the new technology that has arrived and the advent of ‘For Sale By Owner’ web sites like Ms Beeny’s, the vast bulk of property transactions happen in the offices of agents like W. A. Ellis.
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