UK Landlord Forum / Life

LSL Property Services, the owner of the estate agencies Your Move and Reeds Rains, has shut 12 branches and eliminated 315 jobs in a move that signals the slowing market will take its toll on estate agents this year.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/01/03/bcnlsl203.xml

I think the title is a bit misleading, because house prices aren't "tumbling", the market has just slowed down. Anyways, I think everyone saw this coming- estate agents losing work...

Wow.

That said, I'm not very impressed with Your Move at the moment, so there may be more to the story than meets the eye.

Am surprised about Reeds Rains though, they're huge in the NW.


V

Yeah, RR are huge, but it wouldn't make business sense to keep branches open if they're not getting the sales!

Why aren't you impressed with YM, V?

IMO, not a reflection of the housing market, more on technology today, I would imagine more of these offices will close as t'interweb, righmove etc forges ahead, making costly offices etc expensive and unessecary to run,

Sites like rightmove generate leads to the estate agent, so if anything, in theory they should create more work for estate agents...

But perhaps a lot of people are choosing cheaper options i.e buying/selling privately through internet websites.

I personally think it could be a combination of the both- slowing market and the internet.

If anyone is going to get hit in this industry for poor figs its going to be the big boys,  I did hear last week that there YM where going to trim due to a slow start.

I wonder what happened to raven? He stopped posting after his holiday. It would be interesting to hear how business has been for him...

In the real estate business, different companies work together. There are several companies who provide a good real estate work. Company can manage a variety of work-like; building and garden care, these companies are known as real estate contractors.

One of the most complex and significant financial events in peoples' lives is the purchase or sale of a home or investment property. Because of the complexity and importance of this transaction, people typically seek the help of real estate brokers and sales agents when buying or selling real estate.Simon Embley, chief executive of LSL, said: "All people are worried about is property prices, but it is transactions that don't get picked up on.