Tag: Property News

Posted on

Mystery surrounds top agents quitting firm’s landmark branch

Mystery surrounds top agents quitting firm's landmark branch

Estate Agent Today understands that three senior figures have departed from a key central London branch of Knight Frank.

Each of them was a partner in the company and they formed the senior management at the agency’s Kensington office: it is not known why they left.

They are believed to be Tom Tangney, who had been in the industry for over 35 years and had been at Knight Frank for 20 years; Pete Bevan, who had been closely involved in high value PCL sales for some years; and office head Sami Robertson, who was regarded as a key contact in the agency for some Far East clients.

Knight Frank recently lost central London legend Daniel Daggers, known in the industry as Mr Super Prime, who was the subject of media speculation with regard to posts of properties on Instagram. He had sold £3.85 billion of properties including a £95m mansion at London’s St James’s Park, bought by a US billionaire, and an unmodernised off-market house sale in central London worth £45m.

Knight Frank has provided EAT with a lengthy statement about the three Kensington departures, which we have published below; it does not mention any of the three departures by name.

“This is a great opportunity to ensure we have the strongest management and hire the best talent in the market. We firmly believe in recruiting or moving talent from within and in parallel to this, always looking for the very best external candidates within the market who have indicated they would like to join our award-winning team.

“Immediately after the department head for Kensington left the firm, James Pace, proprietary partner and head of the Chelsea office, moved to lead the Kensington sales team. James has been in the Knight Frank Partnership since 2006 and opened the Chelsea office in 2007, building a highly successful team and an unrivalled track record in the Chelsea and wider prime central London market.

“Supporting James, William Allen also joins the Kensington sales team as partner following 10 years at Strutt & Parker in their prime sales team, specialising in the Kensington and Holland Park markets. Tom Van Straubenzee, who jointly runs Knight Frank’s Private Office, will also take up a strategic position working closely with James, William and the existing team moving forward, assisting both vendors and buyers.

“In Chelsea, Charles Olver was promoted to Department Head for sales, taking over from James Pace. Charles has been with the firm for over ten years, based in the Knightsbridge office where he has been a Prime Central London negotiator.

“James is a true asset to our team, with over 25 years of experience and an exceptional track record earned during his time running the Chelsea office. Together with William’s local market knowledge and strong client relationships, they will bring a renewed energy and direction to the Kensington office. Charles is a highly respected agent in Knightsbridge and we look forward to him bringing his enthusiasm and understanding of the PCL market to his new role in Chelsea.

“Kensington is a crucial part of the Knight Frank network of offices and we expect it to remain as such well into the future.”

Posted on

Stamp Duty change set to take centre stage in Budget next week

Stamp Duty change set to take centre stage in Budget next week

Increasing numbers of reports suggest that the government will use next week’s Budget to confirm a three per cent stamp duty surcharge on the purchase of homes by non-UK tax residents.

The new surcharge – strongly hinted at by the government for many months – would be on top of existing stamp duty on a property, and on top of the current three per cent additional homes surcharge.

The Financial Times, citing well-placed sources in The Treasury, suggest this measure will be finally confirmed by new Chancellor Rishi Sunak in his first Budget on March 11.

Leading PropTech entrepreneur Neil Cobbold, who is chief sales officer at automated payment platform PayProp, says this new stamp duty will be welcomed by domestic investors who may see competition from their overseas counterparts diminish over the coming months.

“It’s likely to have the biggest effect in the capital, where the government estimates that one in eight new London homes were bought by non-UK residents between 2014 and 2016. The surcharge was previously mooted at one per cent but its increase to three per cent will certainly act as a deterrent” he says.

But Cobbold warns: “Tenants in large English cities could suffer in the long-term if the additional tax burden leads to a fall in overseas investors and subsequently the number of rental properties available” says Cobbold.”

He adds that while there has in the recent past been much speculation surrounding wider stamp duty changes, the government appears to have put those on ice.

“Stamp duty is a hot button for consumers and property professionals, so the calls to reform the system are always plentiful in the lead up to a Budget. Boris Johnson has previously said that stamp duty rates are ‘absurdly high’ so there could be changes later in his tenure.”

“In the meantime, property professionals and consumer groups will continue to lobby politicians to reduce the pressure. Reconsidering the three per cent surcharge on additional homes and the tax rates which affect the very top end of the market would be a good first step” he explains.

Richard Donnell, director of research and insight at Zoopla, also wantsa to see SDLT reform in next week’s Budget.

“It’s time for the Chancellor to turn his attention to the core housing market and review the price bands and five per cent stamp duty rate that covers averaged priced homes across large parts of London and the commuter belt. No government wants to cut taxes indiscriminately, particularly when losses could be high. However, any cut to the rate of stamp duty could stimulate much-needed marketed activity in southern England in particular” says Donnell.

Posted on

Trying to beat Rightmove is “at best expensive, at worst futile“

Trying to beat Rightmove is “at best expensive, at worst futile“

Any bid by Zoopla and OnTheMarket to displace Rightmove as the number one portal in the UK is at best expensive and at worst futile according to a leading analyst.

Mike DelPrete – former head of strategy at a New Zealand portal and a long-standing analyst of estate agencies in the UK and the US – says Rightmove is an example of a company with what he calls ‘network effects’

By this he means dominant online forces such as Rightmove, Facebook, eBay, and Craigslist are enjoy network effects – being ‘the’ place that people want to be seen, or want their products advertised.

“Even if a new entrant’s product is objectively better, a smaller audience of potential buyers and sellers means an inferior consumer proposition. Sellers want to advertise to the biggest audience possible, and buyers want the largest selection possible” he says in his latest report on the state of portals worldwide.

Specifically referring to the UK landscape he says: “For all the cyclical uproar aimed at Rightmove over its ever-increasing fees, its traffic dominance shows no signs of waning. It remains the undisputed best place to advertise properties for sale, with Millions More Buyers than its closest competition.”

DelPrete says all three major UK portals reported higher January traffic than the two previous years but while Zoopla’s and OTM’s percentage gains may sound impressive, they are from smaller bases than Rightmove’s.

“Rightmove’s traffic lead over its next closest rival remains strong and fundamentally unchanged over a number of years, despite several companies attempting to challenge its dominance” he says.

And he adds that even after Zoopla’s $3 billion acquisition by private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, and OnTheMarket raising and spending tens of millions of pounds to compete, Rightmove’s traffic dominance remains intact.

And DelPrete writes: “The evidence suggests that it is nearly impossible for a runner-up portal to overtake the leader. In fact, there is no evidence that the all-important traffic leadership metric between the top two portals can be budged even a small amount.

“Which begs the question: Why are upstart portals attempting to displace leading portals? OnTheMarket launched in 2015 to challenge the duopoly of Rightmove and Zoopla in the UK. It was founded by a broad consortium of traditional real estate agencies who didn’t appreciate the market and pricing power enjoyed by the existing portals.”

The analyst says there are similar scenarios in Australia and the United States.

He sums up his analysis this way: “Attempting to compete directly with a leading portal is at best expensive, and at worst futile.”

Posted on

Stamp duty could be lowered by Chancellor

A London estate agency says one of its buyers wants to delay completion until November 1 “just in case stamp duty is changed in October”. Aylesford International director Brendan Roberts says one of his firm’s buyers made the request following speculation that stamp duty could be lowered by Chancellor Sajid Javid.

“Anyone looking to sell is unlikely to conclude a sale much before late October even if they found a buyer early September, so agreeing a delayed completion to allow for any changes in SDLT shouldn’t create too much inconvenience and with buyers thin on the ground it is useful to be flexible and adapt to help buyers commit” explains Roberts.

The move follows widespread speculation by government ministers that stamp duty will be reformed – but without saying when or how. Other agents report alternative tactics pursued by purchasers keen to avoid paying more SDLT than they need – but these raise questions over whether conveyancers would help.

“We have had a pronounced increase in enquiries from clients seeking to utilise the existing ‘mixed use’ stamp duty concession. This concession is still not well understood but can yield dramatic savings on higher value properties” explains Gideon Sumption of Stacks Property Search.

“There is a huge and obvious incentive to look at mixed use property where the maximum rate of SDLT is five per cent. There is no current legal definition but such is the amount of money involved there will almost certainly be some case law soon” Sumption continues.

“The current understanding is that for mixed use SDLT to apply, the property needs to have a commercial element, namely enjoy commercial income from land or buildings that from part of the whole. This could be a self-contained annexe let on an assured shorthold tenancy, some pasture let to a farmer or some buildings let as workshops. What won’t qualify are extensive grounds used purely for the enjoyment of the house.”

Another Stacks agent, Bill Spreckley, says buyers are becoming “more and more aware “ not only about the mixed use option but also how so-called ‘multiple dwellings’ can attract lower SDLT.

“If you buy a property with ‘Multiple Dwellings’ – that is an annexe, cottage or flat – then there are discounts available. One takes the price of the whole property, divide it by the number of properties, work out the SDLT per property and then multiply that figure by the number of properties again” he says. He says a principal property sold with two cottages counting as ‘multiple dwellings’ – each sold at a notional £666,666 – would attract stamp duty of £69,999 but sold as one unit at £2m it would incur SDLT of £153,750.

Posted on

25% of private landlords do not meet safety standards

A quarter – 25% – of homes rented from private landlords fail to meet the national Decent Homes Standard when taking into account hazards, costs and other characteristics, analysis of the English Housing Survey reveals.  Households containing several million people are currently living in unsafe or unsuitable rented accommodation, according to the research by VeriSmart.  The study by the independent property inspectors details how 19.5% of homes in the country, which works out at about 4.5 million properties, failed to meet the government’s Decent Homes Standard, when taking into account hazards, costs and other characteristics.

The assessment of the English Housing Survey, which dates back to 1967, shows that the social sector had the lowest proportion of non-decent homes at 13%. 

The most common Category 1 hazards – the most dangerous type of hazard – were falls and fires. Falls on stairs, on a level and between levels accounted for the three most common types of hazard, with fires in fourth place. Converted flats were deemed the most hazardous property type, with 21% of such homes likely to contain hazards, while private homes were the next most dangerous by this measure (14%).

Houses were close behind (12%), with flats proving safer (8%), though social rented homes were least likely to play host to a hazard at just 6%. Some 1.1 million homes had a serious fire hazard – for example no smoke alarms, old or faulty electrical systems, missing fire doors – and other hazards included damp and mould, electrical safety faults and hot surfaces. Jonathan Senior, chairman of VeriSmart, commented: “The figures are worrying when one considers that one in five homes is sub-standard as far as safety, costs and other measures are concerned.

“Some may fret at the average cost to fix a property so that it meets the required standard, but when these properties are falling below expectations in part due to hazards, safety surely has to take priority.

“We recently looked at the tragic number of home accidents – many involving children and many leading to fatalities – and it’s clear that chances can’t be taken in this area.”