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Agents down to one sale a month
Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Affairs Editor28 Nov 2008
LONDON estate agents are down to a single property sale a month, threatening a mass closure of branches next year.
Only 5,291 homes were sold in London in August, down by two thirds on 2007 and the lowest total on record, according to the latest official figures.
With an estimated 5,000 estate agents working in the capital, many will have failed to sell a single flat or house during the worst ever month for the industry.
The number of agency branches has exploded in the past decade but it is estimated that up to half could close in 2009. Several major chains have already laid off staff and one, Humberts, which has 80 branches across Britain, has collapsed.
Halifax has shut 50 of its branches nationally and Countrywide, Britain's biggest estate agency owner with well known London chains such as Bairstow Eves and Faron Sutaria has also warned of branch closures and redundancies. Land Registry figures for October show that the average price in London was down 8.6 per cent to £320,774, the same level as in February last year.
But as the figures are compiled from completed transactions filed with the Registry they tend to lag three of four months behind surveys from Halifax and Nationwide, which have reported steeper falls.
The largest year-on-year fall in London was in Waltham Forest at 9.2 per cent. The biggest monthly falls were in Hackney, Lambeth and Lewisham, all with three per cent.
Reader views (5)
please please get your facts right. Humberts have not closed..they have been bought by mercantile, who own half of chesterton, and are now probably the best funded agent in the uk. Do you have any idea of the damage you do to a business when its clients read badly informed article s in such a well regarded paper?
If I had my house on with humberts and i read that it had closed.....? What would you do in that scenario?
Please redress the damage and tell the truth. We are an incredibly hard working agent and this just ruins our reputation and business.
- An Agent In Sussex, sussex and kent, 28/11/2008 20:44
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To be able to survive so long in the current climate just shows how much money they must have made in the last few years. With their level of overheads how else could they possibly still be in business selling so few properties?.
- Pete, Croydon Uk, 28/11/2008 20:33
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Good, no high street should be overrun by estate agent. Yet Balham high street, South London for example has more of them than any other type of shop. I won't be sorry to see the back of the snooty gelled up sales people.
They had it good for far too long.
Regulate the lot of them, as they're a law unto themselves.
- Simon Caleb, London, 28/11/2008 19:39
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One silver-lining of the recent economic crisis is that lots of estate agents will go bankrupt and have a miserable christmas. Brilliant. Trumped-up little twits with half-an-O-level rent a corner shop and think they have some merit. Good riddance to the lot of them.
- Ant, London, 28/11/2008 19:33
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Estate agents forced various family-run businesses to shut by overpaying rent, and now that they are failing we shall have hundreds of empty premises. Estate agents ruin high streets and pauperise local neighbourhoods. They leave a mess when they finally go. Good riddance to the lot of them.
- Neil, london uk, Airstrip ONE ., 28/11/2008 15:02
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