Here's an interesting new service... moveBROKER helps agents squeeze revenue from every client, whether it ends in a sale or not. Through relationships with leading HIPs providers, solicitors, mortgage brokers, removals companies and utility switching services, it operates as a one-stop shop for agents to earn a range of commissions and rebates. There are two membership levels. One's free, the other costs £499, and includes higher rebates and monthly listings on Nestoria.
Energy Performance Certificates were due to be made compulsory on all marketed properties - including those that went on the market before the original HIPs introduction - from the start of October. Some estate agents have been predicting chaos... a swathe of homes without EPCs being withdrawn from the market at the last minute. Here's a Telegraph piece, dated last Saturday, claiming...
Hmm... if you read the piece carefully it's not at all clear that this is the case. It reads more like wishful-thinking combined with pressure on the part of EAT. The Department of Communities and Local Government's website is, as usual, clear, helpful and incisively written:
Over at Brand Republic, a "mystery caller" from the marketing department calls Foxtons and asks... do you think it's a good time to buy right now? To be fair, in the transcription, the Foxtons agent sounds pretty reasonable. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't want to put a potential buyer off, but he's not making grand claims or being particularly pushy, either. Ultimately, BR give him a five out of ten, not because he tries to mislead them, but because he sounds too cheery and optimistic. What do they want? Tears?
What's this? Madness? Inebriation? No, it's a press release. According to London estate agents Alex Neil, improving lending conditions are the first sign of the boom returning. While other offices are closing, AN continues to expand, "to meet high demand". What's more visits to the AN website are apparently up 218% in the last three months. They predict a 15% rise in London house prices. Which begs the question... what's everybody else doing wrong?
Meanwhile, according to the Halifax, university towns in southern England continue to do (comparatively) well. with properties selling at a premium of as much as 20%. More here.
South Audley Street's Blenheim Bishop is the latest estate agency to - according to this - wind up its sales division. Founder Jonathan Vandermolen is quoted as saying he simply can't make it work. The agency will, however, remain open for lettings business.
Accordiing to the Independent, Savills will reveal a 45% slump in business when it reports half-year results on Thursday, and all the talk will be about job cuts. Meanwhile Foxtons, just a year after a private equity buy-out, is apparently using NM Rothschild to restructure its debt. More here. Builders Bovis are also feeling the pain. The news here is that its profits have fallen by four-fifths in the first half of 2008... and that's being mirrored in the interim dividend payment, which will be 5p a share (from 17.5p last year).
That's according to figures from Debtwire, and they don't include agencies cutting down on staff. Debtwire estimate that as many as 4,000 offices could be closed by the end of the year, that's one in three UK estate agents. More here.
As the fallout from Rightmove's controversial insistence on charging agents higher re-joining fees continues, Globrix boss Daniel Lee tells EstateAgentToday that he thinks Rightmove's behaviour "reads like a suicide note". With so many hungry and ambitious recent start-ups snapping at Rightmove's heels, surely they couldn't have expected to get away with this without a few teeth marks. And this is interesting and potentially very significant:
However, Rightmove also faces another new challenge, in the form of Property Live, the National Association of Estate Agent’s new portal. This will be a free membership benefit and its launch is just weeks away.
That's according to research by the National Association of Estate Agents. Two-thirds of agents claim buyers have "expressed doubts" about going ahead; a quarter have actually seen deals fall through, overtly as a result of fears about buying before a Stamp Duty break. More here.
Yes, believe it or not someone at Jackson Stops & Staff was stupid enough to upload a property to Rightmove with the word 'lesbians' in the spot where the property reference number should have been. The gay couple who owned the £650,000 property were, understandably, horrified when they stumbled upon the advert a few days after it went live.
Although Jackson-Stops & Staff originally said they "fail to see how we have discriminated against you", they have now paid damages of £5,000 in an out-of-court settlement to avoid being sued. A spokesman at the estate agency’s head office has since described the incident as ‘a truly regrettable situation’. Quite. More here.
Oh joy of joys, if you're planning to sell your property in today's climate then you can now expect to pay more for the pleasure. According to The Telegraph, some estate agents are now upping their fees to 2.5% to boost their earnings as house prices fall.
Let's face it, traditional estate agency fees are always a sore point and many would argue that the typical 1-1.5% fee is cheeky anyway. So, should you walk away from an agent that now commands a 2.5% multiple agency fee? David Beakon, senior negotiator at Brighton-based Bonnets Estate agents doesn't care either way...
"If people walk away because the fee is too big then that is fine with us if it is something that we do not want to deal with."
With record low numbers of properties on agents' books, you'd think they'd be more inclined for the business, non?
Otherwise it's something of a low-key interview... a reserved but polite businessman, an enthusiast for Margaret Thatcher, proud of an estate agency empire and either unwilling to engage or unchallenged regarding Foxtons's controversial reputation. He does have a view on the market... a fast fall and a slow rise... give it five years, at least.
They sold an average of six properties each in June, which is bad... a 17% fall from May, and down from 13 properties by agent this time last year. More here.
The Rat and Mouse has been passed a remarkable document that's apparently dropping through London front-doors, purportedly courtesy of Knight Frank estate agency. Here's why Knight Frank agents greet you with a smile.
Sheeesh, I feel better now. That was like Prozac. Mixed with a very dry Martini. In fact, I can't even remember, now, why I felt so depressed before. Oh yeah...
Looks like it was my fault. Damn. To make amends, there's no way I'm going to bogart this Prozac-Martini stuff:
It's an actual, factual miracle. After reading Luke's words I turned to the stone effigy of the Rat and Mouse's own personal Madonna and found it crying wet tears of joy. It's a miracle put into perspective, though, by the fact it doesn't reflect on agreed prices, but does reflect a relatively unscathed top end of the market. Nevertheless, read it again and again, and enjoy.
One of the north east's biggest estate agencies, Sarah Mains, has apparently called in the police, after months on the receiving end of a damaging campaign of mischief and rumour-mongering. According to this, the MoneySavingExpert.com forum has been asked to remove a thread suggesting (falsely) that the agency is going into administration, a story apparently being promoted by unnamed sources, and even spread by rival agents. Asked to comment, Peter Bolton King (National Association of Estate Agents chief) reveals he's being sent hate mail. If any other agents have examples of being kicked while they're down?
In the Times, Hugo Rifkind draws comparisons between the shoe business on Frogstar B and estate agency in Camden. At some point, it became uneconomical to be in any business other than estate agency. Now everybody's a struggling estate agent. Nobody can afford anything. It's all over for Camden.
The incident occurred in Savernake Road, was photographed, and has resulted in some predictably righteous indignation from the Camden New Journal and a local Labour councillor. The errant agent is said to be from the Hampstead branch. Although he/she hasn't been named, they've reportedly been on the receiving end of a stern ticking off.
According to 61% of the estate agents surveyed, the slowdown will be over with in a year. Only 28% thought it would take more than a year, 7% more than three years. More here.
They've sold 45% less property in 2008's first six months compared to the same period last year, and in London they're reporting 7.5% off house prices (although, if they're selling that much less property their house price data isn't likely to mean so much). Above £5m, property remains "relatively immune". More here.
Could you tell me a little about the background to Property Stress Relief? How did the idea originate?
We were meeting lots of vendors who were very keen to sell through our property buying business, SecureASale.co.uk. However, many of them still wanted to hold out for the best possible offer and were having little luck on the open market. We ended up giving free advice on how to improve their chances of selling their property and one lady who lived 200 miles from her vacant flat, asked us to manage her sale for her, hence the birth of PropertySressRelief.co.uk
And your own background is in estate agency?
Yes - although for the first 6 years of my working life I was a professional pianist! I decided to join Foxtons in 2004 when I’d had enough of working long nights, and so went on to work long days AND nights!
When and why did you leave Foxtons?
I (we) left Foxtons in March this year. Speaking for myself, I had achieved everything I wanted to at the company from working up the ranks to running my own branch in Hampstead and increasing revenue by 70% in less than 2 years there. There’s a saying that you don’t earn where you learn and while Foxtons was an unbelievable organization to work for, it was time for me to create my own success.
What tangible solid skills are you bringing to the table with Property Stress Relief? What are you doing that the vendor couldn’t do him- or herself?
We are doing nothing that the vendor can’t do themselves – assuming they have unlimited time, are completely objective and unemotional about their property and have the confidence to manage their agent effectively. In truth, there’s a large dose of basic common sense in everything we do, but our record between the two of us is that of successfully selling 1500 properties in 4 years. We’ve dealt with every possible nightmare transaction, we know virtually every road in N and NW London as well as all the good solicitors, surveyors, reputable tradesmen etc. Our skill is that of re-energizing the marketing of a property, doggedly chasing agents for viewings and negotiating offers as well as possible for our client.
An odd time to launch an estate agency, you might think, but Simplyzigzag ("The People's Estate Agent") is a new and ambitious name combining DIY homesales with an online estate agency model. So which is it? Is it a DIY sales site or an estate agency? You decide. For £50, you get a three-month listing with five images, plus password protected access. For £500, Simplyzigzag act as a full agent, handling enquiries, organising viewings, and - most importantly - earning access to a number of portals that cater to agents-only, including Rightmove and PropertyFinder. For £1,500, your property's featured on the homepage, you get a dedicated account manager who'll oversee the entire process, from offer to closure, to liaising with the solicitor. Like other flat-fee agencies, they point out the money to be saved over the more conventional commission model. It's perhaps a more convincing argument at a time when property's selling easily. Right now, no-sale-no-fee might be more attractive than a £1,500 speculative punt. But £500 to put a property on Rightmove and PropertyFinder seems like a decent deal.
Estate agents aren't sleeping, according to a survey commissioned by Travelodge. They're apparently the most sleep-deprived British workers, managing just 5 hours and 50 minutes of shut-eye every night. Lorry and taxi drivers are next, with 6 hours and 16 minutes, followed by bankers with 6 hours and 23 minutes. The neat connection between these results and the credit crunch and fuel price crises made me - for a moment - doubt the veracity of the results. And I became more cynical after the claim that media professionals are sleeping the sleep of the just, with a survey-topping 7 hours and 12 minutes. Err... what about the parties? Presumably that's counting daytime desk-naps, too.
This has just arrived in our "comments" section. We can't publish the name of the agency at this stage...
Just heard through the grapevine that [a major high street estate agency] have been refused credit to lease new office equipment. They even couldn't get it agreed using backstreet lenders! Is this the start of things to come, no assets, huge debts and no income?
More - subject to the advice of our fifth floor legal department - later.
So what do you do when your boss "lets you go"? Accept that these are rough times for the sector, ask for a reference and seek employment with another estate agent? Perhaps leverage your experience to set up on your own... maybe online? Or perhaps you and a fellow employee invite your boss around to your home, tie him up, give him a sedative, stand on his head for a bit, pistol-whip him, threaten to execute his 13-year-old son if he doesn't give you £200,000, and finally phone his wife and accuse him of sexually assaulting you? Ambreen Gul, formerly of Sky Lord Properties in Ilford, apparently chose option three, in what sounds like a particularly nasty, violent and (considering the whole thing took place in her own home) stupid revenge attack. Waqas Malik, the victim, had hired her, fired her, so - although it seems unlikely at this point that he'd put her through a Myers-Briggs - he must have had some sense of her character. So what persuaded him to turn up to her flat? What do you think?
Gul had managed to entice her former boss - who spent four days in hospital after the ordeal - to her flat by pretending to be interested in... selling her home to him.
First, an astonishing claim in Sunday's Observer, that Jon Hunt might be considering buying back in. He sold Foxtons for £390m at just the right time. Now there's entirely unconfirmed chatter on the subject of him getting a foot back in the door cheap in order to help it meet its loan commitments.
In related - but different - news, the Rat and Mouse has had a number of emails from people claiming to be the driver of the Foxtons Mini filmed off-roading here. Obviously I wouldn't want to cast aspersions on the integrity of my readership... but there wouldn't be room in that car for all the people who've emailed. I demand proof. Would the real Foxtons rally driver please step forward?
Apparently, it's all over. According to the National Association of Estate Agents, first-time buyer sales are up, general sales are up, the time between instruction and sale is down. Now, it's all just a matter of confidence. Personally, I'm not confident. More here.
Former Director General of The Office of Fair Trading Sir Bryan Carsberg, after a low-profile roadshow on behalf of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in which he asked as what we thought about estate agents, published his findings today, with 30 recommendations. Ex-estate agent Henry Pryor is less than impressed:
The review that Sir Bryan undertook included a road show around the country where interested parties could contribute to an overdue debate. Unfortunately in at least one case it seems that the response was so poor that the event was cancelled. I managed to push my way past a dozen others who attended one consultation event in central London to find that even Sir Bryan didn't attend - leaving the evening to be compared by an RICS sponsor.
To the Mercantile Group, who bought 50% of Chesterton back during the troubles of 2005, for a reported £3.1m. The deal - we're told - involves 34 original offices plus another ten franchises. Fourteen branches not included in the deal are likely to be sold by the administrator. In recent months Humberts shares have suffered a 94% fall.
The Rat and Mouse is always interested to discover new and interesting ways in which estate agents are using social media (and I've long been urging agents to blog). Nor is this the first time we've come across houses for sale on Flickr. But we've really got to take our hats (bowler for the directors, R&M baseball caps for the interns) off to Barnet estate agents Alex Kale, who mixes homes for sale with pictures of his Staffordshire Bull Terrier and his Porsche 944 Turbo all on the same Flickr feed. Proving that, in a Web2.0 world, there is no separation between the private and the professional.
According to the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA), 39% of agents are reporting tenant demand outstripping supply, and 77% of landlords are holding property with the intention of neither buying nor selling in the immediate future. A surplus of new-build two-bedroom flats is keeping rents stable in that particular area. In general, continuing demand looks likely, while it remains difficult to get a loan. More here. On the subject of loans, it's more difficult than it was to get one from Egg, the online bank owned by Citi, which - according to this - is pulling out of the mortgage market. It's also more expensive to get one from Busted & Broken, which is hiking rates across its offerings by as much as 0.55%. No doubt partly as a result, nobody's buying. According to figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) estate agents sold an average of 17.4 properties each in the three months to May. That's the lowest since records began in 1978. And they might be right to be wary. Data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) points to 23,000 potential negative equity cases in homeowners who took out 100% mortgages in the year to March 31. More on both those stories here. Finally, the other piece in the jigsaw, also supplied by the RICS, might surprise you. Sentiment - the estate agent/surveyor swellness quotient - improved marginally in May on less bad than expected sales figures. So, technically, what the figures reveal is marginally less rates of unswellness. More here.
Just some closing news and views before the Rat and Mouse puts on its Friday night shoes and heads out to dance the Fishstick... lenders are apparently interpreting yesterday's Bank of England decision to keep interest rates on hold by keeping interest rates on hold. And, er, raising them. Abbey and Broken and Busted have hiked rates, others - we suspect - to follow shortly. And in other news, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicts that 5% of estate agents will lose their jobs this year. That's 15,000 estate agents with even more time to send anonymous tips to the Rat and Mouse. But then they're also predicting there'll be 1% fewer people in work across the board. So - there you are, guys - it's not all bad news. Have a great weekend.
Wow - that's from Plebble.com... a website that dares to go places other websites' lawyers might have deemed off-limits. Plebble allows users to rate customer service and value-for-money, and provide rolling averages. Foxtons isn't doing great... in fact, they're even doing worse than the Government:
The problem - as with any social media - is the potential for mischief making, and we all know that Foxtons tends to carry the can for the public's generalised (and often irrational) distaste for estate agents. That said, the above allegation (about which we know absolutely nothing, other than it exists on the Pebble website, and so can't and won't comment on its reliability) is extraordinary. We'd love to know exactly how a viewing or valuation could possibly turn into a rumpus.
UPDATE 18.30PM - WE'VE JUST BEEN CONTACTED BY PLEBBLE.COM. THEY HAVE APPARENTLY TEMPORARILY SUSPENDED THE ABOVE COMMENT WHILE THEY DISCUSS IT WITH THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE.
Seems like an odd time to open a new branch, but that's exactly what Foxtons is doing. The Camden office - at 120 Parkway - opens its doors on Saturday, June 14, and will be celebrating their new premises with cappuccini and zero commission for the first 200 instructions. It's a courageous way of winning business from the rivals and getting a bunch of Foxtons boards about, but how will the zero percenters fair compared to the other clients when it comes to pushing homes?
I once convinced a gullible friend that I'd met a man who'd exchanged and completed on a new home, only to turn up there, put the key in the "door" and discover that the whole property was made of paper. It was basically a giant, 3D photograph of a house. I thought I'd been pretty smart, until I read this. Here's the (true) story of fake lettings agent Nuruazzaman Miah, who described luxury apartments so well to would-be tenants that they parted with money without even seeing any bricks and mortar. He apparently managed to collect £3,000 from one prospective tenant in a train station... which is arguably less believable than the whole paper house story.
Okay, Thurrock's beyond the M25 (actually, I had to look it up), but this kind of estate agency craziness can't go uncelebrated. Russell Quirk, of Quirk Deakin, is promising to pay the difference if any house he sells is worth less in five years. He's gambling on a regeneration of Thurrock (part of the Thames Gateway expansion) and that five years is enough time for values to pick up again. Brave? Misguided? Read more here.
Brightsale’s Andy Etches tells me that listings on his website have risen 25% a month since February and that viewing levels are higher than in August 2007. He believes that vendors who would have used Brightsale alongside a traditional agent last year are happier to use the website alone, and even more people are considering adding Brightsale’s services to their high street representation. With low overheads built into the business plan, the company’s well positioned to deal with the current downturn.
Halifax was one Rightmove's founding partners, along with Countrywide, Connells and Royal & Sun Alliance, but the news is that they've just bailed, selling their entire 13.1% holding. Rightmove's share price has dropped today, but not catastrophically. The sale follows bearish predictions by Rightmove, a company whose fortunes are linked closely with the fortunes of the housing market. More here.
Eighty offices, 700 staff and a suspension in trading "pending clarification of its financial position". Part owned by colourful private equity billionaire Vincent Tcheguiz, Humberts issued a profits warning in January, and fired some of its executive appointments. Two days ago the new chairman began to express doubt about the company's future... whether it could meet conditions that would enable a rescue package. The Rat and Mouse says... watch this space, closely.
According to research by Debtwire, there were 13,000 estate agents offices in January and now there are only 12,000, with each office employing on average four agents. (If you think you've seen the missing 4,000 estate agents, please let us know.) By extrapolating from the figures, there's talk of 600 estate agents handing over their clip boards and keys every single week. More here.
... where they're warning of a 25% house price crash, between now and the beginning of 2010. Savills' Yolande Barnes is, however, also pointing out that it's in the power of the lenders to turn this into a 6% dip, by lending money once again. If you're shopping in the £5m+ bracket (see below) you don't need to worry too much.
They apparently launched last month, but we somehow must have missed it. AgentQuote are an interesting online proposition... if you're a vendor, you register with them (for free), fill in a little information about the property you wish to sell, you sit back and wait for agents to "quote" for your business, letting you know how many potential viewers they've registered on their books and their rates of commission. Since commissions are pretty much similar across the board - and, in practice, open to last minute negotiation or matching - this probably isn't the most useful aspect. And I'd be very interested to know how AgentQuote intend to check up on an agent's "potential viewers" claims. AgentQuote say they'll be offering a comparison service, too - with agents rated by previous clients. Agents have to register, too, to receive leads... and this is the business bit of the business plan. AgentQuote will charge to add estate agents to their list... because, of course, agents have lots of spare money to throw around right now. We'll be watching this closely.
It was an expensive house - so we're talking about a considerable amount of commission, shifted to Hamptons in the Court of Appeal a couple of days ago. Why I am I writing about this? Because the story's interesting - in a technical kind of way - and might have repercussions for estate agents in the future. A Mrs Bicknall appointed Foxtons to sell her rather expensive house. When they didn't... she enlisted the help of Hamptons, and changed the Foxtons agreement from sole agency to multiple. While Foxtons were sole agents, they'd shown the house to a Mr and Mrs Low... but the Lows hadn't bitten. When Hamptons showed the Lows around, they did bite, and eventually exchanged. Foxtons caught wind of this later, and demanded their kickback commission, pointing to a clause in their contract that stated she'd be liable if she sold the house to "a purchaser introduced by them". Foxtons took her to court, and won. And it's that decision that was overturned a couple of days ago. The appeal judge based his decision on the definition of "purchaser". A purchase is apparently a purchaser when he decides to purchase. When Foxtons introduced the Lows, they weren't purchasers... they became purchasers afterwards. Interesting. You can read the full report - if you can be bothered - here.
The Times asks, will choosing a toff like Savills over a chav like Winkworth give you a better class of service? And the answer, it appears, is yes. but expect to pay for the privilege (of virtual tours, open days, and two dedicated negotiators who "listen")... as much as 2.5% in commission. What you get is an agent who can talk to the talk:
Jonathan Hewlett, of Savills in Central London, says that when dealing with such properties you must operate with the confidence of the insider: “You need to be able to talk about St Tropez, the beaches and the traffic, have been into a brownstone in New York, and understand the vagaries of Zermatt versus St Moritz.”
As opposed to the latest Chelsea fixture, and where to find blackmarket Sky cards. Is it me... or is all this quite funny? I don't doubt - though - that for certain properties, you'd be wiser choosing a top tier agent. But isn't it mainly about choosing the agent that appeals to the kind of person who is most likely to sell your house? Buyers with more money register with Savills, Chesterton, Knight Frank etc, so if your property's expensive, they're probably the people to turn to. The Times feature is here.
The prediction comes from movewithus, a network of independent estate agents including Rolfe East, Clarke Hillyer and Douglas Allen. According to their chief, quoted here, we can expect to see a third of UK agents out of a job by the end of the year. Another interesting detail is that the piece mentions rumours that had reached the Rat and Mouse, but which we were too cowardly to publish, that Foxtons staff are jumping before they're pushed:
At least 63 staff left the company in February alone following poor sales figures.
It's located at Bowl Court, in Shoreditch, a vacant four-storey building in prime London real estate land that - according to Indymedia - has been deliberately gutted by the owners to deter squatters... toilets smashed, windows smashed, hole in the roof etc... and its part of a weekend of squat-related action, matching people to places and other people. More here.
The Rat and Mouse is used to finding estate agents at the bullish end of the spectrum when it comes to the business game of house price predictions, so it's with a certain amount of surprise that I've received a -15% by 2013 from online estate agency Brightsale (admittedly, an agency that isn't afraid of being different). It's part of a report into the future of estate agency, which uses the prediction as evidence that high street estate agencies will be no more than "niche" rarities by 2013, as diminishing business drives them online and out of bricks-and-mortar. You can read "Is There a Future for High Street Estate Agency here.
Thanks to the Zoomf blog for pointing out the way to this great American blog post revealing some truly shockingly bad property listing photographs from 2007. View. Laugh. Shake your head in disbelief.
Hamptons complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about a Savills ad in which Savills claimed to show a significant lead over its rivals defined by number of offices and number of visits to its website. Hamptons suggested the numbers were awry and that Savills had deliberately left off Foxtons. According to this, Savills have come away unscathed, having defended their numbers to the satisfaction of the ASA. Is the current market notching up the tension among agents?
I’ve shown properties at 6am and helped other clients by collecting them from their offices at midnight and settling them into their new homes.
Blimey. He's over here, telling the Times's Career & Jobs supplement what it takes to succeed in the high-end London lettings business.
One of the great things about this job is that I’m not stuck in the office. I spend most of the day out and about, whether that’s getting new keys cut, organising a gas safety certificate, meeting clients or doing something deeply unglamorous – but obviously important – such as unclogging a lavatory. I’ll do whatever it takes to facilitate things for my clients.
I seem to remember there’s an art collective somewhere who specialise in hijacking estate agent signs, but after Googling for a bit I can’t find who it is. Any ideas?
And it has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the £152m in bonuses due to be distributed among it's 5,000 staff. 2007 bonuses are said to be up 20% on 2006 levels, reflecting a 15% increase in profits.
Last summer I reported the appearance on the market of the Solent's landmark No Man's Land fort. It turns out things haven't exactly gone smoothly. Knight Frank were instructed to market the remarkable property for £4m, after the owner's financial backers went bust. However - according to this - the said owner isn't prepared to move out without a fight. He's attached upturned tables to the helipads and locked the doors. If Knight Frank want to conduct any viewings, looks like they'll have to bring the Navy.
OFT was due to launch a scheme from April 6 that would make membership of an ombudsman service compulsory for UK estate agents. Accordingo to the BBC, the start date has been delayed, and no new date has been given.
And yesterday it was all looking sohopeless. Now there's news of Foxtons, Muswell Hill estate agent, Brian Gradner, stepping into the fray to defend a Supersave shopkeeper from a drunken chav shoplifter who spat in his face and racially abused him. Credit where credit's due... respect, from the Rat and Mouse, Mr Gradner.
This time, Bairstow Eves, who apparently managed to post photocopied images of a client's passport and driver's license on the Internet. They meant to post photographs of the house. A house... a passport... easy mistake to make. More here.
Jeez... one moment it's some Government body, next it's the Commies. What's an honest estate agent to do? According to its blog, Class War is planning an afternoon of disruption for Foxtons, Islington on March 3. Furthermore, they're calling on workers to dismantle agents' boards... except only the illegal ones.
We were meeting lots of vendors who were very keen to sell through our property buying business, SecureASale.co.uk. However, many of them still wanted to hold out for the best possible offer and were having little luck on the open market. We ended up giving free advice on how to improve their chances of selling their property and one lady who lived 200 miles from her vacant flat, asked us to manage her sale for her, hence the birth of PropertySressRelief.co.uk
An odd time to launch an estate agency, you might think, but 
