James Lambert

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Alison Platts vandalism and destruction of a generally respected and very successful estate agency brand should be a warning to anyone who thinks they can re-invent the wheel in our industry. The available technology has provided some very useful tools but the fundamentals of our industry have not changed. The banks and Building Societies in the late 1980's and early 1990's tried to turn estate agency branches iinto financial services outlets failed big time. Alison Platts lack of in depth knowledge and experience at the sharp end of estate agency shows in her insistence in trying to turn Countywide into some kind of retail outfit. I hope that Countrywide will now bring back some of the big guns who know the industry inside out to get back on track.

From: James Lambert 26 January 2018 11:45 AM

The irrational funding of the online estate agency model is reminicent of the .com bubble of the late 1990's. No doubt some will make a lot of money in the short term but I suspect a lot of investors will be very disappointed. Now the market has turned home owners will become ever wary of risking paying upfront fees with no g'tee of their property being sold.

From: James Lambert 17 October 2017 09:35 AM

Simon is right, the fundamental business model of PB has been around for decades, what is different is the huge amount of investers money being thrown at it to achieve traction. Without that very high level of funding the tv advertising would not be possible and their visibility would evaporate away. The roots laid by PB may be wide but they certainly are not deep. As regards listing to sale conversion rate, for PB that is irrelavent as their are all about obtaining their fee for the listing only and ultimately capitalising on their share price . A sustained buyers market where sellers are far more resistant to paying a substantial upfront listing fees as well as a investor sentiment turning negative could well create serious problems for PB. Further in such circumstances I dont envisage the self employed local property experts hanging around either.

From: James Lambert 02 October 2017 14:03 PM

"one analysis of recent figures from the agency suggest LPEs earn around £42,000 per year on average". Having read the article it seems based mainly on assumption and not hard verifyable figures provided directly by PB. But even if the figure was an accurate representation for the average LPE and if that is a gross figure, then we must assume it would be pior to the LPE's operating expenses whatever those may be and then what is left presumably subject to Tax and NI so I suspect the true net earnings would be considerably lower. Further, I would guess by now that the best franchise areas would already have been taken and have establised Principal LPE's who would be looking to add addition LPE's of there own in an attemp to build a team. My own experience of these kind of business models is that the LPE's will be taking much of the risk on a self employed status and as such the turnover in these people wil be high. Which may explain the current recruitment drive.

From: James Lambert 11 July 2017 17:38 PM

The fundamental business model of what the likes of PB are doing is not new and has been around almost since the internet had been fully adopted by the property market. What is new is the huge amount of money being thown at it despite most of such enterprises still struggling to turn a profit which reminds me of the dot com bubble. House sellers are notoriously reluctant to pay significant up front expenses to market their properties (as was amply demonstrated by the home information pack fiasco). Clearly there will be some sellers willing to risk a few hundred pounds upfront if they are confident their house is more likely to sell than not, but I would suggest that far fewer are likely to take that risk in a sellers market, however in a buyers market which sooner or later will return, then even those who would risk a listing fee at the present time will be far more reluctant. Further, unlike a good local agent who has strong roots in the local community and can grow organically PB can not, as it relies almost entirely on massive TV and Radio advertising, take that away tomorrow and they will quickly disappear from view and in this respect their self employed LPE's are particularly vulnerable and are very unlikely to hang around. I am not suggesting that traditioal estate agents have cause for complacenc, just merely that given a significant change in market conditions and investor sentiment will be a game major changer for the online only agents.

From: James Lambert 30 June 2017 15:42 PM

The investment and rhetotic relating to the online agent issue is reminicent of the Dot Com Bubble and the business model is still yet to be a solid and proven proposition accross all market conditions. Traditional agents are routed in their local comunities and providing they offer good customer service and combine this with the best of available technology then those traditional agents will have the ability to grow develop and grow organically notwithstanding that their advertising budgets are directed mostly towards promoting their vendor clients properties as opposed to the on line agents advertising spent mainly promoting them selves and their share price. The majority of vendors are reluctant to pay moving costs up front. This was amply demonstrated during the Home Information pack era. A proportion of sellers clearly are prepard to take the risk of up front fees to an online only agent during a sellers market, but sooner or later the market will revert to a buyers market and in those market conditions vendors will be far more reluctant to risk up front selling fees. The other aspect too are the so called self employed local property experts, the back bone of the online agent, they in particular are very vulnerable to a change in market conditions and will throw in the towel in droves when the market turns or indeed when the budgets for the high profile national TV and Radio advertising the business model so relys on drys up. It is interesting to note that online agents are aching only a 48% success rate which falls far short of many of the best traditional agents, but Sarah Beeny is correct in that traditional estate agent estate agents are going to be around for a long long time yet.

From: James Lambert 20 June 2017 09:56 AM

Sounds to me they are hedging their bets

From: James Lambert 08 June 2017 16:15 PM

When is the government going to stop interfering in the property market?. Yes the big corporate estate agents do put immense pressure on the branch staff to secure mortgage business and subsequently on their buyers and sellers. However, it is easier than ever to research the mortgage market and available products than ever before, not to mention plenty of independent mortgage brokers with whole of market access, so I find it hard to believe it is necessary for the FCA to conduct yet another review into mortgage market or that people are not yet savvy enough to shop around. Further the FCA should concentrate more on enforcing current regulations rather than looking for reasons to add more. As for the government, they should be doing far far more to enable and accelerate house building both in the private and social sectors rather coming up with popularist vote catching gimmicks that further exacerbate the ongoing housing crisis.

From: James Lambert 13 December 2016 16:03 PM

Its sad to see a big hitter Estate Agency like Countrywide being vandalized in this way. It reminds me of the late 1980's and early 1990's when banks, building societies and insurance company's were buying up estate agents big time and tried to turn them into hybrid financial services outlets, it simply did not work. The departed senior management of countrywide were seasoned long term career estate agents and knew the business inside out, some of them I knew as competitors in our younger days working at the sharp end and they were good. The current experiment to turn the business into some kind of retail outlet moving away from hardcore professional estate agency was always going to end in tears. I drove past one of my local Countrywide branches this morning. It had just four properties in the window the rest of the display was just yellow cards with black writing presumably trying to promote their retail messages. That sure as hell is not gonna get prospective vendors walking through the door.

From: James Lambert 08 December 2016 15:22 PM

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