letting agents
We Must Give Our Young People A Chance
A friend recently asked me to give his son some advice about a career in an estate agency. I did my best to help him but in the process of doing so I realised that it would be almost impossible for him to do what I did when I started. I took my first estate…
Read MoreThe End Of The Family Owned Business?
A great deal has been written about how changes to CGT in the last budget will prevent farmers from handing their farm down to their sons and daughter. However this change to tax laws will also prevent people from handing down other businesses to their families like estate agencies and this has hardly been covered…
Read MoreThe Impact Of N.I. On Letting Agents
There have been a lot of articles about the impact of the recent National Insurance increases on pubs, shops and the big supermarkets. However, no-one yet has a written about the impact on estate agents and letting agents and the impact will be quite serious. Let’s look at the impact on a small letting agent…
Read MoreA Truly Extraordinary Week for Mergers and Acquisitions
This has been a truly extraordinary week for mergers and acquisitions activity in the lettings sector. On Monday the private equity investor ICG spent £450 million buying Lomond Group. Just 28 hours later they bought the largest remaining independently owned letting agency in London, Kinleigh Folkard and Hayward. KFH is an extraordinary business. I undertook…
Read MoreWhat Would A Labour Government Mean For Letting Agents?
It now seems almost certain that we will elect a Labour government on 4th July. So, what will this mean for letting agents? Well, this depends on the size of their victory and the type of Labour government that we get. If the election is a landslide our new government will have much more confidence…
Read MoreWhat impact will an agency sector dominated by mega-businesses have on us independents?
Adam Walker (right), a well-known broker who specialises in selling letting businesses, recently wrote a very interesting piece about the consolidation of the lettings industry where he forecast “that within the next five to ten years the lettings market will be dominated by a small number of mega-businesses with independent agents becoming increasingly rare”. If…
Read MoreA Huge Vote Of Confidence In The Letting Market
The recent sales of Stirling Ackroyd, Chestertons and Alexander & Co represents a huge vote of confidence in the UK letting market. Despite endless articles about the decline of the buy to let market, it seems that a private equity fund and a large European property conglomerate still have enough confidence in the sector to…
Read MoreAre Letting Agents Responsible For Rent Increases?
Letting agents are now regularly being accused of profiteering from the shortage of rental property by pushing up rent. This is an absurd allegation but it is worth looking at what factors are responsible for the huge increases that we have seen in property rents over the last few years. The answer of course is…
Read MoreWhy You Need Cyber Insurance
Almost every day I read a story about an organization that has been the victim of a cyber-attack. One of the UKs largest conveyancing solicitors suffered such a devastating attack last year that it virtually closed down their business for many weeks. One of the London boroughs was unable to provide property search information to…
Read MoreThe ULEZ Threat
I keep reading articles about the desperate shortage of rental accommodation in London and the spiralling rents. This is of course caused by the usual issues. Increased mortgage costs for landlords, new compliance legislation, savage fines for minor breaches of the compliance rules, the ending of Section 21 and the huge cost of complying with…
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