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Massive expansion announced by Countrywide

06 October 2010
Written by rosalind renshaw



Countrywide Residential Lettings has announced massive expansion and will open more than 150 offices over the next 18 months.

Part of the growth will be organic but Countrywide also expects to make purchases. The aim is for its lettings business to generate annual revenue of over £100m.

The news coincides with the appointment of Margaret Longden as co-managing director of CRL.

Longden was very much the star at Sequence, where she successfully built up the lettings business, despite having no agency experience. She joined the Connells Group on secondment from its owner, the Skipton Building Society, to co-ordinate Connells’ acquisition of Sequence from Royal & Sun Alliance.

In January 2004, she took on the role of divisional managing director for the lettings division of Sequence, trebling its income and portfolio size, whilst profitability grew fifteen-fold.

In her new role at Countrywide, she will join John Hards, her co-managing director. She will oversee the company’s expansion in the north and midlands, while Hards will manage branches in London and the south.

Longden said: “I’m thrilled to be joining Countrywide during such an exciting time for the business. The pace of change and expansion is exciting and I’m looking forward to working alongside John Hards as we embark on an exciting new chapter for Countrywide.”

Comments

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    EAT, can you please stop idiots from making comments using other people's names?
    It's bad enough allowing people to blog anonymously (why would anyone want to do that?), but permitting them to post blogs as if they were someone else is just not on.

    In the meantime, I wish Margaret all the very best in her new role at Countrywide.

    The Real David Livesey!

    • 07 October 2010 20:50 PM
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    This post has been removed by site admin

    • 07 October 2010 08:55 AM
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    I take this opportunity wish Margaret all the best in her new role to take Countrywide forward.

    • 06 October 2010 16:47 PM
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    @wardy - They are already the UK's largest letting agents??

    Plus everyone has realised that sales is dead!

    • 06 October 2010 12:32 PM
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    Funny, we heard the opposite on the Midlands grapevine....Directors being kicked out, staff redundancies and office closures. Usual "spin" maybe??

    • 06 October 2010 09:40 AM
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    In other words, countrywide have had enough of trying to sell in a tough market and they see lettings as a cheap way of spinning some money together, although they have realized that training one neg per sales office to suddenly be a expert in lettings does not work. They have science bought some new management in.

    • 06 October 2010 09:26 AM
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    This post has been removed by site admin

    • 06 October 2010 09:05 AM
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