BREAKING NEWS – top 5 stories 08/03/2021

BOOMIN TO LAUNCH ON 2ND OF APRIL

Nobody’s fool, Boomin swerve the 1st of April, as they announce the 2nd of April 2021 to launch.

As the founders of Boomin have reportedly said and as they say they are not looking to win the big three portal race, they are in a different event altogether, looking to enrich agents and increase the UX of the property consumer.

This is where the new battle lies, provide a great experience for a property consumer, provide tangible RIO for the agent client, exciting times and everyone will be looking on to see what happens.

CONNELLS HAS COMPLETED ON COUNTRYWIDE AND NOW HAS OVER 1,200 BRANCHES

The deal is done and now there is one undisputed heavyweight in the UK real estate sector, headed up by David Livesey and his small, seasoned c-suite of trusted helpers who have decades of close focus on how to run a big agency.

Having worked for both Countrywide PLC in their salad days, and Sequence, part of the Connells/Skipton group, I think that the general public are the winners here, as they now will be getting a huge amount of service out of ex-Countrywide branches, which have been left to wither and die with minimal input from the old c-suite.

WILL LLOYDS BANK GET INTO THE BUILD TO RENT MARKETPLACE

Following a poor 2020, Lloyds has been making noises it may look to re-enter the ‘Property’ sector in a strategy around property and the rental sector. This comes as a surprise to me as I read it in the FT over my eggs and bacon at the weekend.

In 2008 Lloyds lost their shirt in Ireland – in excess of £4BN from memory, in which vertical – why – ‘Property Investment’ where 90% of the loans went south, about £5BN had to be written off, with another £6BN seeing over 50% written off, and of course the taxpayer had to bail Lloyds and other banks out. I think that sometimes someone in the c-suite has a bright idea – like this one – not realising that the property market is about to take another haircut – yes being a landlord is not the same as underpinning property to sell, but if your asset base becomes devalued by say 10% plus, all of a sudden, all the sums do not add up.

Not to mention that at present over 900,000 tenancies in the UK are behind with the rent, Furlough is still in place and one study suggested that repossessions could be as high as 23,000 in 2023, presently 6,000 annually.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY (IWD)

Today is the international women’s day where the spotlight is put on the successes of women and where the large inequalities sit. Being very much involved in the property industry since the mid 1980’s and Proptech, which by its nature has really only been a thing in the UK since 2017, I do see that both sectors are very much still, male stale and pale, and I am all for this to change.

RICS COMES TO THE RESCUE BY PROVIDING NEW CLARITY ON THE CLADDING ISSUE

RICS has set out in detail which buildings will need to be looked at with regard to cladding issues, as at present many lenders have a blanket ban on lending for many properties. The idea being that as there is a huge backlog of ESW1 signoffs, this can be reduced by re-classifying the real property stock that should be targeted.

Janet Paraskeva, speaking for RICS, states that they understand and ‘recognise the significant distress caused to leaseholders struggling to sell flats in blocks with external cladding. This announcement is a crucial step in unlocking the market, by ensuring that only those buildings where there are risks of costly remediation as a result of safety concerns from cladding are subject to additional checks.

If you have a view – please let us all know by emailing me at [email protected] – Andrew Stanton Executive Editor – moving property and proptech forward.