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James Walsh
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my expertise in the industry

James's Recent Activity

James Walsh
How can this be a "shock"? We are heading for 10% unemployment rate. Most serious analysts and the Bank of England are projecting a decline of 15-25%.

From: James Walsh 02 June 2020 07:59 AM

James Walsh
If Surveyors are so keen to increase transaction volumes post COVID why don't run a campaign to return the market to its historica valuation multiple? That would be far more effective in getting buyings and selling going.

From: James Walsh 14 May 2020 08:10 AM

James Walsh
I trust tenants will be getting a 12 month 'rent holiday' too?

From: James Walsh 12 May 2020 08:09 AM

James Walsh
What a load of tosh. The way to "kickstart" is for the Government to (finally) allow prices to fall back to their historical multiples. Then the market will be active again.

From: James Walsh 30 April 2020 09:15 AM

James Walsh
This stat is because foreign buyers have no idea what they are doing. Once Corbyn is in Number Ten and they realise the £10mm flat that they bought to launder some money now costs them £200k a year in tax they will be dropping them like a hot potato!

From: James Walsh 14 June 2019 12:37 PM

James Walsh
"Brexit-related". What a load of tosh. Prices in London are correcting from a bubble phase. Everyone can see that taxes on property in the UK are much too low. In almost all other civilised countries (USA, Germany, Belgium etc.) owners pay 1.5% - 2.5% a year on the value of their homes. That is a nailed on certainty to be introduced in the UK soon, and it might be as soon as 6 months. Once owners of £2mm houses in London have to find £40-45k a year of extra post tax income to pay the tax, and once mortgage lenders start deducting it from affordability criteria, we are going to see a collapse in prices. Anyone buying at London's still inflated prices now is a fool.

From: James Walsh 14 June 2019 12:35 PM

James Walsh
Rubbish. See my comment below. People aren't buying houses in London and South East because they are terrible value for money. Seems like estate agents are the only ones who can't see this.

From: James Walsh 20 November 2018 18:10 PM

James Walsh
When the Government reformed SDLT they said it was a cut in Stamp Duty. Their OWN figures projected a fall in revenue from it. The fact that revenue from it has hardly fallen at all is testament to how resilient to the top end of the property market has been. It makes no sense to use a reduction in SDLT revenues as a stick to beat the SDLT reform when that was its intended effect. The reality is that London property is absurdly over-valued, and that is why no one is buying it. Look at the moves in other overvalued asset classes like US tech stocks, Aussie real estate and cryptocurrencies and you see what is in store for London property. But please don't blame SDLT. It has nothing to do with it.

From: James Walsh 20 November 2018 18:09 PM

James Walsh
I think I am going to need to award a "desperate comment of the week" award. Mr Tremlett has made a strong pitch for this week!

From: James Walsh 19 November 2018 15:05 PM

James Walsh
Anyone buying in London right now had better be in it for the very long term, unless they are getting at least a 30% discount. There doesn't seem any scenario in which things don't get quite a lot worse before they get better. Prices are massively out of whack with earnings (which has always signalled correction in the past), interest rates are rising, a lot of new supply in coming on stream, taxes on property are going up, Corbyn is poised for Downing Street, which his land tax and oh yes ... isn't there something going on with the EU also?

From: James Walsh 15 November 2018 14:25 PM

James Walsh
Good to see Winkworths being honest about the London market. But my question today is this: given that selling and especially buying agents are usually so vocal, why has there been almost no coverage of Ben Wallace's very important speech last week about the National Crime Agency looking at the role of buying and selling agents in facilitating the massive amounts of money laundering that we all know goes through London property each year? People like Henry Prior - who usually tweets what they had for breakfast - were strangely silent on this story. I wonder why everyone in agency went to ground? For the benefit of ETA, I give you the link again: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/minister-launches-updated-serious-and-organised-crime-strategy. Isn't it the job of ETA to publicise important stories like this? Seems to me only a matter of time before an agent (I am guessing a buying agent will be first) is jailed for abetting money laundering.

From: James Walsh 05 November 2018 07:45 AM

James Walsh
Reads more like a child's letter to Santa Claus than serious analysis. All the banks and the agencies with serious research like Savills are all predicting further falls in London, at least. Based on the historially unsustainable ratio of prices to earnings - which always corrects in the end.

From: James Walsh 01 November 2018 07:37 AM

James Walsh
To Mr Leaf I would say: the thing that is lowering transactions in London and the South East is the glaringly obvious fact that prices are far too high. If sellers lowered their expectations just a little the market would start flowing again. To Mr Smith I would say: good grief, the last thing we should be giving minted baby boomers is yet another bloody tax break. I work 12 hours a day as it is to fund their free bus passes and social care, while they sit in £1mm houses laughing at us. What we need is a proper Land Value Tax as Labour and Lib Dems will bring in. That way all these people will move to more suitable accommodation and free up the large family homes that they are certainly blocking. Mr Corbyn would be a disaster in many areas of the economy, but on this one policy (Land Value Tax) he is 100% right.

From: James Walsh 30 October 2018 09:59 AM

James Walsh
Agree that Help to Sell is ludicrous. But 100% mortgages right at the top of the cycle with interest rates rising and house prices falling in many areas, are you insane?

From: James Walsh 23 October 2018 15:27 PM

James Walsh
The Government doesn't "need" to do anything except wait for prices to come down to levels where normal people can buy them. It was always outrageous that a private individual could claim a corporate tax relief on business interest. The Government merely ended a huge and unfair anomaly. And it isn't going to ever put it back I can ssure you. As for SDLT, I refer to my point above. Compared to international norms UK top end property is very lightly taxed.

From: James Walsh 23 October 2018 15:25 PM

James Walsh
Three inaccuracies in this "report": 1) London property is very lightly taxed by international standards (not "heavily taxed") (can supply graphics if you need), 2) Prices cratering in London have nothing to do with Brexit. Prices are falling for the same reason any price falls in an open market - they were, and are, much too high - and people now see that. 3) I don't agree that the Government hasn't been clear about the 'post Brexit' landscape for property. It seems pretty obvious to me that they want an unwinding of the speculative bubble which inflated post Crash. What the Government wants it usually gets.

From: James Walsh 23 October 2018 07:33 AM

James Walsh
Problem with Mr Weedon/Leaf and the other Chicken Little's is that the data proves them dead wrong. Rents have not been increased at all as a result of (long overdue) reforms to BTL taxation. Rents in the South East are falling not rising. And they will continue to, despite what BTL might want, because they are set by what renters can afford.

From: James Walsh 17 October 2018 08:32 AM

James Walsh
There is a reason why the housebuilder sector is one of the single biggest donors to the Conservative Party. They buy two things: 1) continuing strict rules on new development. This might sound counterintuitive but it is crucial to housebuilders because it means they can restrict the supply of new properties and keep inflating the value of their land banks. And 2) they buy ludicrous policies like taxpayer funding for their new home sales (laughably called "Help to Buy", when as everyone knows it should accurately be called "Help our Major Donors to Sell at Overinflated Prices and Get the Taxpayer to Fund It".

From: James Walsh 16 October 2018 08:45 AM

James Walsh
When Shipside says "stretched buyer affordability" - which is basically nonsense - he means "prices are too high" right?

From: James Walsh 15 October 2018 07:15 AM

James Walsh
This doesn't seem very plausible to me. Online agents have been reporting an absolute flood of properties on to the market, in the overvalued South East anyway. As for the cause of price declines, it is just wrong, and disingeniuous, to blame things like Brexit or stamp duty. Everywhere from New York to Sydney the top end is collapsing. NYC doesn't have Brexit does it? And prices are falling for same reason all prices all (for centuries), and that is that prices were too high to sustain demand. In London everyone can see that prices were only being sustained by zero interest rates and foreign speculation. Now both of these are being removed prices will come down to earth. Ain't rocket science.

From: James Walsh 11 October 2018 07:12 AM

James Walsh
I wish this initiative every success. At every turn residential property transacting is beset by unncessary costs and delays. If they can get the whole thing on a simple blockchain it will make the process far quicker and cheaper for consumers.

From: James Walsh 10 October 2018 21:27 PM

James Walsh
It all sounds so defensive. Why can't they just say "the estate agency model is essentially unchanged since the 1950s, we are updating it in line with how people live today, i.e. no one in their right mind wants to spend half a day in a Foxtons (or any other agency) office".

From: James Walsh 10 October 2018 07:17 AM

James Walsh
This isn't the probe that central London agents should fear. What I am hearing is that the Government are pressuring the NCA to open a wider probe into the facilitation of money laundering by PCL agents over the past decade. They are going to be asked to justify all transactions over a certain size involving a group of perceived 'high risk' clients (i.e. Russians, Caymans companies etc.). That is likely to involve some very awkward discussions I suspect, given the AML duty which agents should have been following, but were they?

From: James Walsh 08 October 2018 08:59 AM

James Walsh
Why isn't there a third option on the poll called "Prices much too high"?

From: James Walsh 08 October 2018 08:54 AM

James Walsh
A straw in the wind.

From: James Walsh 08 October 2018 08:52 AM

James Walsh
This is great news for agents! But it is bad news for prices. In London, where I am, we all have a roll to play now re-educating sellers that the market up to 2014 isn't coming back anytime soon and a signigicantly lower level is now required to get liquidity flowing again. Painful conversations I know, but absolutely neccessary to unblock the market. Sellers are receptive I think, they are not fools and realise that things went up too far too fast.

From: James Walsh 05 October 2018 07:48 AM

James Walsh
Nothing to do with the ludicrous overvaluation of the market then? It would be nice, just once, for an agency to admint that the reason no one is buying and prices are buying is because property is overvalued. Not Stamp Duty, not Brexit, not AMLs checks, just people realising that prices were much too high, have been falling for a while but have a way to go until they bottom out.

From: James Walsh 04 October 2018 08:06 AM

James Walsh
London agents loudly defending their narrow commercial interests should perhaps pause for breath. Even before Salisbury, but especially following it, there has been a sea change in opinion on the desirablity of allowing London property to launder money. The vast majority of the country see that this confers absolutely no benefit to the country at all, as almost all of it goes into bidding up existing properties. The only winners are the agents and accountants who facilitate it. But I would advise caution. The Danske Bank story is only just getting going. €200 billion of Russian money was laundered through that bank. And let's remember how this money is generated: prostitution, drugs, arms dealing and frauds committed online against British citizens. This money all went into Estonia and then out again. The FT today asks: where did the money go? Well I hope I am wrong, but I suspect that some people reading this thread know exactly where it went. And as the investigators and journalists pursue it (as I know they are doing), I would pretty concerned if I felt that any of it had passed through my client account. Like the expenses scandal and so many others, these things have a habit of laying dormant for ages and then exploding into a massive crisis with people being prosecuted etc. So calls for a "relaxation" in non-resident ownership of UK property with no questions asked are doing huge harm - in my opinion - to the reputation of our professional. And are about as far away from public opinion as you can get.

From: James Walsh 03 October 2018 09:12 AM

James Walsh
Rather predictable bleating and whining from top end London agents on this. But the reality is that Government policy is clearly designed to prick the London price bubble and get prices back down to where they are reasonable for normal working Londoners. This is no different to the BoE rising interest rates to prevent a stock market bubble. It is a sensible policy that will mean a better market for everyone. Yes, a few fools who bought at the top of the market in 2014 will take a bath, but it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that those prices weren't sustainable. They will get over it.

From: James Walsh 01 October 2018 10:47 AM

James Walsh
Errrr .... what?

From: James Walsh 30 September 2018 12:30 PM

James Walsh
This measure is long overdue. It will only bring the UK into line with Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland and whole host of other countries. It is could to see that the majority of people criticising it are saying it doesn't go far enough! Of course there are a few central London estate agents who will be well put out. But if your business revolves around facilitating money laundering and pricing normal working Brits out of their own capital then you probably need to be looking for alterative employment now anyway. Because whether it is May or Corbyn, the swamp is slowly going to be drained now.

From: James Walsh 30 September 2018 12:28 PM

James Walsh
"A significant market opportunity" eh? I don't see it. PCL prices are so wildly out of line with historical averages that they could fall 40% and still be expensive (not my analysis, but KPMG). The reason transaction volumes have slumped to almost zero is because almost every potential buyer now sees that prices are going a long way south before they find a bottom. But of course greedy sellers will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to make the adjustment.

From: James Walsh 25 September 2018 08:46 AM

James Walsh
The surge in equity release is certainly shift a lot of risk from the Baby Boomers to the finance companies writing the put options on the market. I am pretty concerned though about how blase the finance providers are. KPMG are suggesting that a 40% decline in prices is a realistic scenario. In that scenario you are looking at billions of losses for the 'no negative equity' finance providers. Sub prime all over again?

From: James Walsh 25 September 2018 08:36 AM

James Walsh
So Mr Abrahmsohn's argument is: "we should let foreign criminals launder money through London property because: a) it helps his business and b) otherwise they will do it somewhere else. Not a great argument is it?

From: James Walsh 18 September 2018 07:52 AM

James Walsh
AML is non-existent in UK property. Guy walks into a London agency and says he wants to buy £10 million flat for his Russian client. Transfer from Cyprus Bank. Agent just accepts it. And why? Because there has never been a prosecution of an estate agent for money laundering, despite hundreads of them (London ones, usually) being complicit in tens of billions of £££s of money laundering since the 1990s. What I really hope is that the Government will start going after them retrospectively. We need a couple of London agents in jail with 20 year sentences and it in Daily Telegraph. Then AND ONLY THEN will AML be taken seriously in London. Until that happens, why should anyone bother?

From: James Walsh 07 September 2018 13:13 PM

James Walsh
I don't know why 70% of agents (above) would be concerned about AML in the UK. Unless I am mistaken, there has never been a prosecution of an estate agent under AML law, despite the billions of £££s of money laundering which goes through London property each year. The British Govt will never act against money laundering in property. Too many MPs and Ministers are close to the industry and have no desire to kill a golden goose. So you all RELAX!

From: James Walsh 07 September 2018 12:59 PM

James Walsh
Zoopla and portals have sucked value from estate agents because they add far more value than estate agents. Try this simple thought experiment: as a house seller if you were only able to use a portal OR an estate agent, which would you choose? Of course the portal - otherwise no one would ever find your property! That is why Purplebricks etc. are thriving. I still don't understand why Zoopla doesn't go the whole hog and just become an online estate too. It is such an obvious move.

From: James Walsh 07 September 2018 12:47 PM

James Walsh
Price declinces have zero to do with SDLT or brexit. The simple fact is that prices got detached from affordablility. In London because of speculative / money launderer buyers. In the rest of the country but Buy to Let and ultra low interest rates. Now all these factors are heading the wrong way (money laundering is marginally more difficult, BTL now have to pay tax like everyone else and rates are now rising) it isn't surprising that prices are now declining back to pre bubble levels.

From: James Walsh 03 September 2018 11:49 AM

James Walsh
Help to Sell is the most ridiculous and economically illiterate policy the Conservative Party ever came up with. It was just a flagrant attempt to prop up prices and help their donors in the new build sector sell more overpriced units using taxpayer guarantees. I hope it is canned asap.

From: James Walsh 03 September 2018 07:55 AM

James Walsh
Dinosaur business model destined for the dustbin of history. The property world's equiv. of BHS, Debenhams, House of Fraser, Toys R US, etc.

From: James Walsh 31 August 2018 10:32 AM

James Walsh
PCL numbers are absolutely meaningless. There is no "recovery" at all. All they are saying is that a few more heavily discounted properties are selling at higher prices. They apparently can't adjust for this. Probably just some 20 year kid with Excel doing it. Like most stuff in property, outdated and amateurish.

From: James Walsh 29 August 2018 07:54 AM

James Walsh
Funny, that is what they said about Uber, AirBnB, Amazon, Google and Netflix too. And now it is happening in banking too, with companies like Revolut. Anyone clinging to the old fashioned, high cost, "please come in to the branch and also I will send one 100 emails" models is going to get blown away. No one under 60 wants that anymore.

From: James Walsh 28 August 2018 10:26 AM

James Walsh
This advice is a bit late for London! Prices peaked in 2014 and have been declining ever since. A valuation agent from Coutts came to see me a couple of weeks ago and said that his company believed that London would declined another 25% from here, to get prices (somewhat) back into line with what people can afford.

From: James Walsh 28 August 2018 08:02 AM

James Walsh
Congrats to Yopa on the fundraise. Money continues to pour into online estate agency, which is fully justified when you look at the enormous unnecessary costs charges to the general housemoving public to sustain the massive inefficiencies and unnecessary costs in the "traditional" model.

From: James Walsh 28 August 2018 08:00 AM

James Walsh
I can't understand for the life of me why Rightmove doesn't just start selling houses and put everyone out of their misery. What do they need estate agents for? In the USA that is the way the market is going rapidly now. There is much less of a distinction between 'agents' and 'portals' there.

From: James Walsh 24 August 2018 17:20 PM

James Walsh
This rush of people from the sales to the buying side makes sense. In the South of England / London no one has any confidence in the market today. EAs are overvaluing properties by significant amounts and then advising their clients to accept bids way below asking price. In that environment a buying agent can add massive value. As a potential buyer around £1.5mm mark myself I am now terrified. I know I should be able to get 10% below asking price comfortably. But what if I could actually have got 20% (as now seems increasingly common )? I would feel a right chump for not using a buying agent to get the last few percent reduction.

From: James Walsh 24 August 2018 09:16 AM

James Walsh
What a ridiculous article. What is to blame for the UK market drying up? Stamp Duty .... The Weather?Laughable. The market has stalled because potential buyers have finally woken up to the fact that the market is (in many places) massively overvalued. If prices were lower people would be buying again, despite the weather. Agents with their self-defeating practices of trying to ramp up and then sustain prices have created this rod for their own back. That is why it is so welcome to see Connells taking a lead and re-pricing significant numbers of properties to account for the recent fall in the market. Prices have to fall much further, of course, to bring them into line with historical averages. The sooner that happens the sooner the market will start functioning again, regardless of levels of stamp duty or the weather!

From: James Walsh 21 August 2018 09:33 AM

James Walsh
I love all the dino-agents still trying to halt the tide coming in. When Countrywide is about to go bust, Foxtons has lost 90% of its value and probably isn't far behind, and high street agents are closing at an increasing rate - surely it is obvious that the long feared 'reckoning' is upon us. Online estate agency is the future and high street agency is the past.

From: James Walsh 17 August 2018 10:59 AM

James Walsh
Of course agents over-value to get instructions. Twas ever thus, even in a falling market like this one (I am in London). But the really destructive thing agents do is try to manipulate prices. Rather than accepting their role as an honest broker between buyers and sellers, many agents (in London anyway) seem to regard their role as actually "supporting" local prices. They active try to get motivated sellers NOT to offer property too low for fear of "re-pricing the street". I don't know why they see this as their role, but I know many do. It is a hugely destructiuve practice because it stops prices moving to where there would be real liquidity.

From: James Walsh 14 August 2018 10:55 AM

James Walsh
The number of FTEs is way down because prices are completely out of whack with incomes. Why does everyone find this so difficult to understand? It isn't the fault of SDLT, Brexit, political uncertainty, or Jack the Ripper. It is the fault of Mark Carney for inflating a giant bubble, and to the greedy and entitled Baby Boomers and their estate agent partners in crime who are doing all they can to keep prices sustained for as long as possible.

From: James Walsh 13 August 2018 15:03 PM

James Walsh
Mike Ashley seems to like burning money on dying dinosaur high street businesses. Perhaps he will buy Countrywide?

From: James Walsh 13 August 2018 13:21 PM

James Walsh
This article makes one huge implicit assertion, i.e. that estate is at the "trough" of a cycle, which will be followed by a "peak" at some unspecified time in the future. But what is the high cost high street model is actually on a path to secular extinction, like the "department store" which was viable from the 1940s to 2000s but which no longer works? My money says that high cost estate agency never recovers to what it was in thr 1990s and early 2000s.

From: James Walsh 13 August 2018 09:49 AM

James Walsh
So James, I take it you are doing your bit for the health of market by refusing to overvalue and generally trying to get price levels down to a point where people can afford to buy again? Hmmmm ... thought not. Maybe if the property industry paused to look in the mirror it would realise that most of the problems we face today could be solved amongst ourselves.

From: James Walsh 12 August 2018 15:30 PM

James Walsh
The lack of transactions at the top end of the property market has nothing to do with Stamp Duty. It is a classic smoke screen peddled by desperate agents who don't want to face the truth: that prices are ridiculously overvalued and need to fall substantlially to bring them back into line with average earning. Once that happens buyers will return and the market will function once again.

From: James Walsh 12 August 2018 15:28 PM

James Walsh
Central London is now a vicious circle. There are far too many estate agents. They only way they can get instructions is by significantly over-valuing properties. Then the properties don't sell. Everyone now knows that the average discount is up to around 10%, but now buyers feel confused and they have no confidence. "what if I bid 10% below the Offer but the real price is -15%, maybe I should bid -20%" etc. etc. The you have valuation agents. I hada valuer from Coutts Bank at my house recently. He said he was downvaluing by 20% in numerous instances. He told me he was telling clients that there is 25% more downside in Central London. So the whole market just stalls. It won't get going again until sellers understand that 2014 isn't coming back anytime soon and move offer prices decisively lower. But agents have got to accept this and play a role in re-pricing the market to realistic levels.

From: James Walsh 10 August 2018 07:54 AM

James Walsh
The vast majority of the population would disagree 100% with Mr Abrahmsohn on 'non dom' tax arrangements. I certainly do. I hope we get rid of 'non dom' status altogther. It is an affront to natural justice and the unforunate people like me who happen to be born in the UK that some people - often for totally spurious reasons - are able to live and work in the UK for many years and not pay their share of tax. I am sure Mr Corbyn will end it completely when he gets into Number Ten, and not before time!

From: James Walsh 08 August 2018 18:30 PM

James Walsh
Simon Shinerock - I put it down to utterly unrealistic sellers. Sellers refuse to accept that the London market has declined significantly (and is falling still). I would say someone who refused to accept reality is a 'time waster' yes.

From: James Walsh 07 August 2018 14:11 PM

James Walsh
61% of London properties can't be sold now. That is staggering. Huge pent up supply. Once reality dawns on these people that 2014 peak ain't coming back there is a going to be significant downwards pressure on prices. It is worth pondering the experience of Toyko which experienced a similar speculative bubble to London in the late 1980s. In 2004, Tokyo property was worth only 10% of the price at the top of the market in 1989!

From: James Walsh 07 August 2018 08:29 AM

James Walsh
Your assertion that the number of "time wasters" is "way down" would appear to be contradicted by the next news item below this one. A staggering 61% of properties in London are now withdrawn unsold.

From: James Walsh 07 August 2018 08:21 AM

James Walsh
What a load of self-serving rubbish. The writer doesn't outline even one task in the sales process which couldn't either be automated now, or will be very soon. Of course someone from the Guild of Property Professionals doesn't want automation or value for money for consumers. He wants to get in the way and continue to extract £15-20k out of a transaction which should cost hundreds of pounds maximum.

From: James Walsh 06 August 2018 14:28 PM

James Walsh
Whenever a company talks about things like "back to basics" you know it has run out of ideas and isn't long for this world ... the reality is that the world moved on, and Countrywide didn't. It is the House of Fraser of estate agency.

From: James Walsh 03 August 2018 07:50 AM

James Walsh
Banning - or at least strictly limiting - foreign ownership of UK property would be very popular in the country. I think Corbyn will look seriously at this when he is PM (6 months or so).

From: James Walsh 02 August 2018 12:10 PM

James Walsh
I really think I should be a hedge fund manager sometimes. Why on earth were the shares rallying on Monday and Tuesday? It was obvious that Countrywide's problems were much more severe than they were letting on. They have a dinosaur business model and are now being eaten alive by better priced online competition and the costs of running all those high street branches. My advice to Agent s is: don't try to catch a falling knife.

From: James Walsh 02 August 2018 11:42 AM

James Walsh
Why would the Government want to reverse the recent tax changes? A slow deflation of the property bubble is in everyone's interests.

From: James Walsh 02 August 2018 11:13 AM

James Walsh
I loved the objective assessment of market conditions by Russell Quirk the estate agent. Many indicators (transaction volumes, seller/buyer registration ratios, mortgage approvals etc. etc.) are flashing orange at least. In London prices are already in freefall, and we all know from experience that London leads the country. But Mr Quirk is that banker from Citibank before the crash. He is "still dancing"!

From: James Walsh 31 July 2018 08:10 AM

James Walsh
IMHO, people buying expensive property in London today are playing Russian roulette. Mrs May's Government was within a few mins of collapse two weeks ago. A General Election looks a very high probability in the Autumn. Then we will see Mr Corbyn in #10. How will they set the new Land Tax level? Well if I was sitting in a £1.75 house in Parsons Green that I had just bought I would be pretty nervous. 3% of value pa was the number floated in 2015. I hope those buyers have a spare £40-50k a year in post tax cash income to cover their Luxury Property tax. At least on the upside, the deluge of people trying to sell to avoid it might unblock the market a bit!

From: James Walsh 31 July 2018 08:05 AM

James Walsh
Yes. Rightmove will need to diversify. But having captured all the property searches in the country it will be easy for them to pivot to become an online estate agent and basically wipe out most of the high cost high street industry.

From: James Walsh 31 July 2018 08:01 AM

James Walsh
The agents didn't "lose" anything. We are in a bear market. Agents over-valued properties to gain an instruction. The price was unrealistic and was never going to sell for the amount quoted, so it gets withdrawn. Yes the agent wasted a little time and money, but these are fixed costs for agents - as they have to pay staff even when (as now) there is very little for them to do. So overvaluation makes sense, because they might just get lucky and catch a dumb foreign buyer who doesn't read the press! So these aren't "lost" revenues at all.

From: James Walsh 25 July 2018 07:51 AM

James Walsh
Does Hometrack data have any credibility at all? From what I read on social media, it would appear not. No else seems to believe that London prices are "rising". Quite the reverse, in fact.

From: James Walsh 25 July 2018 07:27 AM

James Walsh
Reminds me of Conviviality plc. Dinosaur business model, loads of acquisitions (not properly integrated), lots of debt and business (I suspect) being run on spreadsheets. Conviviality plc went from stock market darling with 'Buy' ratings from analysts to bust with wiped out shareholders in about 10 days.

From: James Walsh 24 July 2018 09:15 AM

James Walsh
I don't think we have seen anything yet. The London house price crash hasn't spread out into the rest of the country yet. And the effect of (for the first time) genuine lower price online competition is only just starting to be felt. I fear the long awaited shake out of the industry is finally at hand.

From: James Walsh 24 July 2018 07:25 AM

James Walsh
All the traditional agents above talking about the "loss" for Purplebricks show only your own ignorance and myopia. These aren't losses, these are the up front costs for taking over your industry. Amazon STILL makes losses in some quarters. Yes it is is the most valuable company in the world! (perhaps you all think it is worthless too). Investors are supporting PB like they supported Amazon for the same reason. They see the MEGA amount of wasted fees and costs that are currently bled out of customers by the high street model. They see that for a very modest (yes modest) upfront investment they can do to you what Amazon has done to crappy local shops and accrue that fee income (reduced of course) to themselves.

From: James Walsh 23 July 2018 13:52 PM

James Walsh
What I see across a range of "traditional" industries is incumbants who don't understand what "service" means anymore. I might be wrong, but I suspect Simon you define service as sending people emails with PDFs attached, ringing them constantly on their mobile phones, dragging them into an office to talk face to face. Over 60 year olds do INDEED consider this "service". But I fear that under 40s, and certainly me, consider this anything BUT service. Service is an App on my phone which just works and shows me the info I need cleanly and immediately. The bad news for traditional agents is that most young people HATE having to phone someone to do a piece of admin. Like Uber, Spotifiy, Occado, Amazon, Netflix etc. - they expect it to just work on their phone. I suspect you are confusing "service" with "friction". It is a mistake many other industries have made, and that is why so many traditional companies are going bust now.

From: James Walsh 23 July 2018 13:43 PM

James Walsh
Purplebricks and its clones will do to high street agents what Uber has done to black cabs. They won't put them all out of business overnight. But the emphais on tech, ease of use and value for money will eventually result in them taking a very significant amount of the market. Expect trad agents to lobby Government for protection now. But I think they will get short shrift. There are far, far too much people taking money out of people's pockets in the property transaction ....

From: James Walsh 23 July 2018 10:20 AM

James Walsh
This doesn't go nearly far enough. Why are the numbers so low? At a time of national housing crisis the Government should be doing far more to get all properties being used properly. How can it ever be justified to leave a property empty for 5 years?

From: James Walsh 23 July 2018 10:11 AM

James Walsh
I love all the euphenisms around "equity release". Equity release is just DEBT. Just more debt which a homeowner takes on secured against a property. Nothing is "released" - people using this are just borrowing more money.

From: James Walsh 20 July 2018 08:38 AM

James Walsh
An interesting initiative. And another example of how human "market knowledge" is being replaced by Big Data.

From: James Walsh 20 July 2018 08:34 AM

James Walsh
What the market is telling us is that Foxtons no longer has a business model. A decade ago someone selling a posh flat in Fulham had to accept £30k in fees to have a chinless 22 year old paste a few pictures on RIghtmove because there was no viable alternative. Now that online agents have come of age these egrecious fees are being competed away. The two other killers are the restriction on rental fees (which has really killed Foxtons) and the long-overdue revaluation of business rates. Suddenly all those mega expensive high street locations they have are properly taxed, and now they find that actually they don't make sense. I think Foxtons will go the way of some of the restaurant chains which failed to move with the times. 47p a share? Not cheap in my view.

From: James Walsh 19 July 2018 08:24 AM

James Walsh
If they included £1 million plus properties in London the figures would be much worse. I would love to see the current rate of sales in Nine Elms (for example) now all the off-plan Singaporeans have realised what a mistake they made!

From: James Walsh 18 July 2018 12:53 PM

James Walsh
At least he isn't a Buy to Let landlord.

From: James Walsh 17 July 2018 15:12 PM

James Walsh
I agree with Rob. I would own Rightmove all day long. They have tremendous pricing power. I just don't understand why they don't do a Purplebricks themselves though and put estate agents out of their misery.

From: James Walsh 16 July 2018 17:17 PM

James Walsh
This is the calm before the storm. But for agents, the storm could be very positive. I believe that this Government will fall in the Autumn, and that a General Election will follow in which Mr Corbyn will be elected. They will introduce an immediate Budget with a significant Land Tax element to it, steeply sloping upwards for higher value properties - probably tied to a SDLT reduction for 'downsizers'. This will have the long-awaited, and much needed, effect of flushing out all those Baby Boomers sitting in ridiculous sized properties. The market will be flooded with larger properties, prices will inevitably fall quite a bit at the top end, but the market will then once again be liquid and agents can make a living again! This will be beneficial for the country and for our industry.

From: James Walsh 16 July 2018 10:02 AM

James Walsh
This is total rubbish. How does Knight Frank know? Have they asked every single potential buyer their reason for not buying? Of course they haven't. The reason London is dropping is the same reason any market falls, buyers think the asset is overpriced. Brexit etc. is a convinient piece of groupthink excuse to cover the fact that London prices are horribly over-valued. But the article is right on one thing. If you think things are bad now just wait until Mr Corbyn gets in. I am sure he will introduce a serious Land Tax. THEN you will see some liquidity in the market!

From: James Walsh 13 July 2018 13:47 PM

James Walsh
Anyone running an estate agency who is not a "fan of technology" is toast.

From: James Walsh 13 July 2018 13:44 PM

James Walsh
If I was Purplebricks I would have sued this guy for punative damages. Everyone can see that luddite high cost agents hate the competition but everyone should play fair and not make false statements.

From: James Walsh 11 July 2018 08:07 AM

James Walsh
It will be 80% in 10 years..

From: James Walsh 11 July 2018 08:03 AM

James Walsh
By "property experience" I guess you mean someone from the industry with a vested interest in propping up all the expensive and inefficient nonsense which keeps hundreds of thousands of people in jobs for which there is little / no actual need - and for which the British public pays a hefty price...

From: James Walsh 10 July 2018 08:38 AM

James Walsh
Delusional nonsense. From the same person who confidently predicted a big cut to Stamp Duty in 2016. Savills data shows prime London is down over -17% from 2014 peak. And still falling hard. I would trust their data rather more than this self-interested chalatan!

From: James Walsh 10 July 2018 07:48 AM

James Walsh
Saved for how long I wonder? In 10 years' time human estate agents will be as rare as switchboard operators. And for the same reasons....

From: James Walsh 10 July 2018 07:46 AM

James Walsh
I wouldn't worry about the name too much. Tory Housing Minister are there for one thing only: to ensure that not too many houses are built and that house prices keep rising. I am sure this new 'Minister' will be effective in this. They don't have to do anything!

From: James Walsh 10 July 2018 07:43 AM

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