Countrywide has continued its acquisition programme by taking over a company consulting with house builders in the Home Counties and London.
The acquisition of Lanes Land and New Homes, a Hertfordshire and north London firm, came after Countrywide - already Britain’s largest estate agency group - unexpectedly upgraded its profits forecast to the City.
“We’re absolutely delighted to further increase our residential development offering. The acquisition of such an established land and new homes business further enhances our commitment to providing a truly market-leading service to developer clients” says James Poynor, Countrywide’s group residential development director.
Countrywide last month won Gold New Homes Estate Agency of the Year at the Estate Agency of the Year Awards.
The deal is only the latest in a series of acquisitions by Countrywide, as it seeks to further lessen its dependence on the sale of existing homes.
Countrywide’s share price boomed early yesterda - against the run of play of many property companies on the London Stock Exchange - before stabilising to close about four points higher than its opening price.
The improvement in its share price followed the release of a pre-close trading update saying it enjoyed a better than expected fourth quarter of 2015.
This came, according to the statement, despite uncertainty over buy to let purchases in the light of the unexpected additional homes stamp duty proposed by Chancellor George Osborne. The group’s mortgage business appears to have been particularly successful.
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It's such a perfect day, I want to...sorry, where was I?
Oh yeah, pretty good going from Countrywide, who don't seem to be out of the news at the moment. Would be a close run thing with Purplebricks, OTM and Zoopla for the most column inches, although eMoov would also give them a run for their money with rent-a-quote extraordinaire Russell Quirk leading the charge!
They certainly seem to be booming at the moment. Will be interesting to see what happens in the future - whether they go fully hybrid, whether they try and stick to a more traditional model, how much further they expand. It all seems very up in the air at the moment but you can't deny the impact they are having - they seem to be the name on the lips of nearly everyone in the property industry, very much flavour of the month.
Have Countrywide got shares in Estate Agent Today? One would think so...
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