Archive

Fine & Country and The Guild of Property Professionals have been revealed as the next acquisition for The Property Franchise Group...

Amid the frenetic news agenda of recent weeks, a story broke that may have easily passed you by. It revealed how tenant...

Housing minister Jacob Young recently scotched rumours that the property portal proposed in the Renters (Reform) Bill would remove the need...

A veteran PropTech figure with extensive experience of working at leading estate and sales agencies has told the government to act...

It’s time to abolish what is colloquially called Landlord Licensing. If you’re a casual reader and perhaps not in our industry, a...

Estate agency regulations and minimum standards may finally see the light of day after Labour put forward amendments to the Government’s...

In recent years, the UK private rented sector has witnessed a significant increase in government regulation aimed at raising standards for...

Like most parts of the UK, the one I live in has a bit of a beef about parking. More precisely,...

It’s not a sentence that I thought I would be writing, but Housing Secretary Michael Gove has indeed finally done something...

Licensing of estate agents may raise the barrier to entry but it won’t stop those with poor morals, Fine & Country’s...

Russell Quirk may have already irked plenty of estate agents in his time as boss of collapsed online brand Emoov and...

Landlords are exiting the market in droves. According to an accountancy firm who analysed HMRC data, 70,000 buy-to-let landlords left the sector...

I was delighted to read recently about the creation of the first ever ‘register of logbooks’ in the UK, which offers...

Analysis by professional cash buyer and portfolio landlord, Landlord Buyer (part of Open Property Group), has revealed what costs make up...

We’re only in February and it’s already clear that this year will set the future direction of the private rented sector...

Half of Estate Agent Today readers agree that industry regulations and minimum qualifications will improve standards in the sector but a...

Conservative MPs are continuing to question when new estate agency regulations will come in as the Government sticks to its stock...

Agents remain positive about the prospects for their business and the property market despite talk of slowing house price growth and...

The government has insisted it is still committed to introducing agency qualifications and minimum standards in the sector. It is almost three...

The Property Franchise Group (TPFG) chief executive Gareth Samples has called for a steer on when the long-awaited Regulation of Property...

Propertymark is urging restraint on the part of the Welsh Government as it moves to tackle what it sees as the...

If you want to sex-up the Chancellor’s financial statement scheduled for lunchtime on Wednesday, you’d call it a Budget or a...

A bid to regulate second home ownership in part of the UK through changes to planning policy will add complexity and...

Timothy Douglas, Head of Policy and Campaigns at Propertymark, analyses the impact that the lack of available data is having on...

In this guest feature, James Dilgul, Head of Marketing at Fixflo, the market-leading repairs and maintenance management software provider, looks at how...

A BBC investigation has revealed that a man’s house was sold and his furnishings removed without his knowledge, in the latest...

Pressure appears to be building for the recommendations of the Regulation of Property Agents working party finally to be implemented. It’s now...

There are a huge array of products and services covering the entire journey of lettings, from prospecting all the way through to...

Drone technology has come on a long way in recent years, with different use cases across various industries. New developments in...

Jackson-Stops, which currently has 42 branches across the UK, has revealed it’s going to have another 20 by the end of...

An online estate agency is launching a quasi franchise operation it calls Agency In A Box and claims applicants will “effectively”...

In this week’s In Conversation Today, I am delighted to chat with Lucy Morton, Head of Residential Agency at JLL, about...

Local elections rarely set the pulse racing and this year’s poll on Thursday faces a similar problem. But this time, it’s a...

Licensing of the short-term lets sector in Scotland was due to be introduced next month. However, it was recently announced that...

Countrywide and Foxtons have thrown their weight behind an idea to identify every single UK residential property with a unique number. The...

First off, hello and welcome to this new series – appearing in Estate Agent Today’s Breaking News section each month –...

A London estate agency chief executive says agents "have become good at pretending that they are qualified and regulated when the...

The industry regulator who comes into force when the Regulation of Property Agents’ recommendations are adopted may take over versions of...

Back in September, Westminster Council launched a new strategy to help 'protect tenants' and 'ensure they live in good-quality and well-managed...

The pandemic and the way the government has reacted to the private rental sector (PRS) has got me thinking about the...

If a week is a long time in politics (an old phrase, for younger readers), then a year is a very long...

Earlier this month, it was revealed that property industry bodies have joined a new Code of Practice Steering Group to enact...

The chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, Mark Hayward, is to retire at the end of this year.  The...

A new estate agency Code of Practice is to be written by a group set up by the Royal Institution of Chartered...

The recommendations to regulate and train the estate agency industry put forward a year ago remain on the Housing Secretary’s desk...

It may be that by the time you read this it’s all over for Robert Jenrick, the Secretary of State for...

The industry should continue to prepare for large-scale reforms such as mandatory agency training, the licensing of agents and a new...

The author of dramatic reform proposals for estate agents has given a clear message to ministers - Get On With It!  Lord...

There’s something of a conspiracy of silence over the problem of short lets. That is a stark claim but many siren voices...

First things first, a big happy New Year to everyone. Welcome to 2020! It looks set to be another interesting year...

It’s been clear for a while that the additional regulation landlords and agents are facing has helped professionalise the private rental...

In just over two weeks, the UK population will head to the polls for the fourth general election since 2010. Of course,...

The National Association of Estate Agents and the Association of Residential Letting Agents have issued their manifesto for next month’s General...

The US-based real estate firm Keller Williams says it is aiming to be this country’s leading agency training organisation. Ben Taylor, who...

The boss of a 15+ branch estate agency group has explained how he thinks regulation could 'ruin' the estate agency industry. Simon...

We know that the tenant fee ban has cost letting agents dearly, with an estimated loss of £300 million paid to...

A PropTech company is suggesting that property mis-measurements and resulting over-valuations may be the next PPI scandal. The firm - Spec, which...

If you thought - perhaps hoped - that five weeks of prorogued Parliament meant a break from politics, think again: the...

New compulsory qualifications for estate agents will not only offer more transparency for customers but will help recruit better staff into...

How many of you are in favour of estate agents being licenced? Would most agents rather not be overseen by a regulator...

Trade bodies and property firms have strongly welcomed the recommendations for root and branch reform of the agency industry - and...

The government has published proposals for far-reaching changes to the way estate and letting agents are regulated, trained and licensed. The proposals...

While media attention has been on Theresa May, Brexit and the Tories, chatter in the agency industry has been about what...

The recent ARLA Propertymark conference featured a hugely interesting line-up of speaks and session during a watershed time for the lettings...

It’s time, surely, for government to crackdown not just on rogue agents and landlords but on rogue councils that confuse the...

Countrywide’s executive chairman and group managing director have spoken to Estate Agent Today about the impact of Brexit on the company,...

Barely a day goes by when we don’t read a new report on the unscrupulous practices of landlords; of the sub-standard...

It’s safe to say that the majority of agents will be glad to see the end of the past two years....

The title may be unfamiliar but most agents know by now that in the corridors of Whitehall a working party exists...

It’s now almost a month since the government introduced new rules on Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMO), as part of its...

A statement to the London Stock Exchange by eProp Services has cemented its role primarily as a PropTech firm. This is in...

Labour says it wants ‘Healthy Homes Zones’ in a bid to reduce housing-related health inequalities which are estimated to cost the NHS £1.4...

Estate agent licensing will reduce competition, make buying and selling homes more expensive, and add another layer of red tape to...

This week I carry out a question and answer session with one of the most high-profile names in property. Isobel Thomson has...

It’s no surprise that figures don’t always show the results or consequences we expect - even if they are entirely accurate. Look...

A conveyancers’ trade body has told the government that it wants the house buying process to be modernised by having estate...

Another week, yet more consultations - the agency industry can’t complain about not being asked for its views recently. The latest were on...

Like many of Labour’s recent policy proposals, its call for rent controls leaves more questions than answers.  There has been widespread criticism...

In this week’s Natter I’m going to get all political. Don’t worry, I won’t be giving my opinions on Brexit, Trump...

It’s not just the evenings drawing in that marks the approach of autumn - it’s also the return to work of...

Adam Day, the founder of Connells-owned online estate agency Hatched, has been announced as head of operations at easyProperty.    In a statement...

More than 270 easyProperty licences have been secured by independent estate agents belonging to The Guild of Property Professionals and Fine...

That the private rental sector has become the government’s whipping boy for housing problems - landlords in particular, letting agents almost...

A consumer group says it is giving what it calls “the top 1,000 estate agents in England and Wales” badges to...

The rental market has had to face a raft of changes over the past year, including the introduction of the 3% stamp...

When a tenant paid his initial one month’s rent in addition to a tenancy deposit in exchange for the keys to...

eMoov founder and chief executive Russell Quirk has launched another online petition, this time calling for mandatory licensing of estate agents. The...

It’s been a heartening few weeks for those of us who thought that protest was dead – or, more precisely, that...

The new mayor of London Sadiq Khan has pledged to do all in his power to help make London “better” after...

There’s been plenty of forecasting in recent weeks - banks, consultancies and high-end estate agents have predicted house prices in the...

You might recall a collective sigh of relief emitted by stakeholders in the housing market and private rental sector back in...

A reader of Industry Views is unlikely to need converting to the virtues of buy to let, but anyone involved in...

Labour’s newly-elected candidate for next year’s London mayoral election says he will name and shame rogue landlords and create a public...

A riposte to Paul Smith's article 'Why Estate Agents Must Stand Up to the Power of the Portals' I just read an...

Many Councils are now introducing Landlord Licensing within different boroughs, for those that have one of the requirements is a 24...

A little over four weeks ago I was here musing what impact the impending general election might have on the property...

With pension reform, council licensing changes and a General Election on the horizon, many are anticipating a boom in the buy-to-let...