Estate Agent Today

Kremer Signs have recently supplied Felicity J Lord for both the office fascia signage and their residential estate agency boards as part of their company rebrand. The latest large group of estate agents to require this service was Felicity J Lord, part of Spicer Haart, which took advantage ofKremer Signsexpertise. Project manager and...

Spicerhaart has lost its costly four-year battle against Fine & Country over the use of its Fine brand. The Court of Appeal has upheld the decision of the High Court handed down in March last year, supporting Fine & Country’s claim that Spicerhaart was guilty of trademark infringement and passing-off. Despite the...

Asking prices across England and Wales have breached the £250,000 mark for the first time, Rightmove reported this morning. The average asking price of a property brought to the market between May 12 and June 8 was £252,798 – up 2.7% from a year ago and 1.2% from the month before....

The NAEA and ARLA have named their new incoming presidential teams.   Jan Hӱtch, from Arnolds Keys, Norfolk, is president of the NAEA, while Susan Fitz-Gibbon succeeds Jane Ingram as ARLA. Hӱtch succeeds Mark Hayward who has combined his role as NAEA president with his ongoing job as NAEA managing director. Both women...

A former estate agent and two mortgage brokers were among five people found guilty for their roles in a £3m mortgage fraud case. The verdicts came at the end of a saga which involved two failed trials before the third, at Bournemouth Crown Court, where there were nine defendants out of...

The home-buying market could be permanently downsized post-recession, and home-ownership levels could continue to fall. The warning comes from the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association, which says the Government must urgently review its policies. Transactions are still around at least 40% below those of their peak, and according to the Bank of England...

The amount of conveyancing work being undertaken has risen 15% over the last year.   A national survey of conveyancing and legal firms by property search provider SearchFlow found that 59% have reported a rise in business over the last 12 months, with just 7% seeing a fall. According to the latest Land...

“I called, they weren’t there, somebody took a message, I missed the call back (because I work), I tried again at 5:30. I got voicemail. Tomorrow it starts again” This report came from a vendor with an attractive £250k property to sell, she’d been on the market for almost six months,...

“I called, they weren’t there, somebody took a message, I missed the call back (because I work), I tried again at 5:30. I got voicemail. Tomorrow it starts again” This report came from a vendor with an attractive £250k property to sell, she’d been on the market for almost six months,...

So you have succumbed to the internet and email. Totally essential, seeing as Rightmove and Zoopla are the powerhouses of modern estate agency. You might even be flirting with property-specific software like Reapit or Vebra, or contacting potential clients using Brief Your Market. However, if your adoption of technology stops there,...

New plans for a second low-cost agent owned portal have been announced. Nethouseprices would be in head-to-head competition with Agents Mutual, which announced its own plans just weeks ago. However, Nethouseprices suggests that its plans are much more advanced, and that a new portal – which, like Agents Mutual, is designed to...

Online agent eMoov is claiming record growth this year, saying that it is fuelled by the public’s disenchantment with high street agents. The firm says it has had growth of 63% in the last three months, with 300 homes listed during May. eMoov’s founder Russell Quirk was himself a high street agent...

House prices have shot up to their highest on record thanks to ‘steroid’ injections in the mortgage market, it was reported this morning. The LSL/Acadametrics survey says house prices are now higher than at their previous peak of February 2008 and are £6,125 higher than a year ago at £233,061. Reporting for...

It is not exactly a new accusation – but once again, estate agents have been accused of pressuring buyers into using their own in-house mortgage advisers. This time the accusation has come from mortgage industry stalwart Ray Boulger, of John Charcol. In the Telegraph, he is quoted as saying: “The most common...

Two men who planned to use money that had been obtained fraudulently to set up an online estate agent have been jailed. Kevin Neal, 51, of Spain, and Anthony Fisher, 65, of Tunbridge Wells, were both sent to prison for two years after sentencing at Derby Crown Court. The pair had pleaded...

A new version of the Great British Property Cycle is to take place this year, to raise money for the Estate Agency Foundation which will pass on the funds to a range of homeless charities. Last year’s event raised around £70,000, but this year a huge cross-Britain event is not being...

What’s your role at LCA Recruitment? I have recently been appointed as the new Recruitment Manager for the agency, based in the Central London branch in Bank What’s your property background? I ran my own successful land and property development business for ten years in Hertfordshire, working with clients in the UK, and...

Social Media has a big influence on our work and home lives and according to the CIPD (Harnessing Social Media for Organisational Effectiveness, May 2012 CIPD Report) the influence of social media is growing. “Back in 2007 over 22% of UK adults had a social networking profile and according to Ofcom’s...

Just as it has for all other areas of life and commerce, the Internet has given Estate Agencies and especially Lettings Agents both a great opportunity and a real challenge. While online portals provide a great new location to place listings and drive business your way, a personalised website is...

I worked with a lovely agent last year who kindly invited me to shadow him on a valuation. He had asked me for help to win more instructions without discounting, so I was there to figure out what he was saying, and where I might be able to suggest changes.   Mrs...