Agencies round-up: Purplebricks, Harrison Murray, Heaton, and more

The aftermath of Easter and shock announcement of a snap General Election have done little to stop the industry making plenty of staff and other moves this week.

Firstly one of the senior non-executive directors of Purplebricks, Nick Discombe, has sold 1.6m shares at £3 per share. After the sale he still holds 4,812,788 shares representing some 1.78 per cent of the hybrid agency’s issued share capital.

Buying agency Heaton & Partners has added two new senior members to its team. 

May Rahmani joins as an associate operating in the North Surrey and East Berkshire areas, bringing with her some 10 years of experience in both buying and selling property for firms including Harrods Estates, Sotheby’s International Realty and Savills.

Charles Phillpot also joins Heaton & Partners to play a key business development and marketing role. He was with Savills for 20 years as marketing director; in addition to responsibility for marketing and PR for the Savills brand, he also ran development marketing. He is charged with developing Heaton & Partner business and increasing its media footprint.

Meanwhile Harrison Murray senior residential manager Nicola Roberts, who works at the firm’s office at March in Cambridgeshire, has successfully completed the NAEA Propertymark NFoPP QCF Level 3 Technical Award in The Sale of Residential Property. She has been in agency for 28 years.

Finally the UK’s longest-established estate agent recruitment consultancy says political parties fighting June’s General Election should put jobs at the centre of their campaign.

Property Personnel managing director Anthony Hesse says: “In the estate agency sector, we need to ensure that we are able to plug the skills gap, especially considering the number of vacancies that currently remain unfilled.”

He is calling for clarity from all parties on employment policies. “There are currently two ongoing government investigations into worker employment status, neither of which is due to report until the end of the summer. So parties need to make their positions clearer about where they stand. It’s also true to say that Brexit has led to greater uncertainty in the sector. Proposed changes to employment law or recruiting from abroad are back in flux.”