Foxtons US in the shitter
September 27, 2007 at 1:16 pm | In bankruptcy, foxtons | Leave a Comment
According to NJ Newsday:
WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. – Foxtons is closing because of the slumping housing market.
The West Long Branch-based real estate company says it’s contemplating bankruptcy protection for an orderly shutdown.
It will lay off 350 of its 380 workers and intends to keep 4,400 listings on the market.
Senior vice president John Blomquist tells The Asbury Park Press the company no longer has the liquidity to operate as a going concern.
John Hunt sold Foxtons UK for to a private equity firm for nearly £400 million in May of this year, but apparently retained ownership of Foxtons US. Even though the report claims Foxtons is closing because of the US housing slump, the company has never actually made any money in the US market, since it entered the NY tristate market in 1999.
Viewing properties using Google Earth
June 15, 2007 at 11:41 am | In foxtons, google maps, nestoria, search, trovit | 2 Comments
This week both Nestoria and Trovit announced their new Google Earth feature, allowing users to view properties in 3D. Interestingly, Foxtons is also claiming Google Earth on integration on their blog, but when I tried a search on their website, it didn’t seem to be working properly.
update: Foxtons web team had a small problem with the KML feed, but they’ve managed to fix it and it’s now working ‘like a dream’
Help catch blogstalker Felicity J Lowde
May 28, 2007 at 4:46 pm | In agents, blogging, crime, london | 8 Comments
This story is weird.
Social blogger Rachel from North London (pictured) is the victim of blogstalker Felicity J Lowde.
Lowde was found guilty of harassment recently, but is on the run and blogging a strange rant/defense over here.
Rachel is a heroic 7/7 bomb survivor, and set up her blog to help other victims of the tragedy, yet Felicity J Lowde has the audacity to accuse her of “deserting the dead”.
The story gets weirder as one of the most popular estate agents in London almost goes by the same name as the apparent Ms Lowde(Felicity J. Lord), 
which leaves me wondering that perhaps the reason the police can’t catch up with Ms. Lowde is because she’s using a pseudonym. Nevertheless, can all this negative publicity be good for Felicity J Lord?
UPDATE: May 25, 2007; Lowde captured and in custody
Foxtons sold for £390m
May 21, 2007 at 9:54 am | In deals, foxtons, private equity | 4 Comments
Jon Hunt has done the deal of a lifetime .
Foxtons, the largest London estate agent, has been sold for about £390 million to BC Partners, the private equity group.
The sale of Foxtons, an agency once as famous for its sharp practices as for the fleet of colourful Minis used around the capital by its salespeople, is bound to prompt fears that Jon Hunt, its founder and owner, is making a call on the top of the UK housing market.
The sale of Foxtons’ UK business will hand Mr Hunt, its founder and chairman, a windfall of more than £350 million from his estimated 90 per cent share of the business, which includes Alexander Hall, a mortgage broker.NEW YORK BUSINESS EXCLUDED
Mr Hunt, who founded the business 26 years ago in an office in Notting Hill, has excluded from the sale Foxtons’ fast-expanding but loss-making US estate agency chain based in New York, which he will continue to control.
Michael Brown, the chief operating officer of Foxtons, will continue as chief executive of Foxtons in the UK under its new private equity ownership.
Foxtons has 20 wholly owned offices, 19 in London and one in Guildford, Surrey. Including associated offices, Foxtons trades in a total of 40 UK branches, 22 in London and 18 in Surrey.
[via Times]
The problem with Foxtons marketing
March 9, 2007 at 8:41 am | In agents, foxtons, marketing, technology | Leave a CommentFoxtons have been doing some aggressive (and technically impressive) guerrilla marketing lately. However I wonder about their overall strategy, and a lot seems to be timed with their well publicized IPO intentions or in an effort to score a private equity buyout.
Looking at the Foxtons video advert, reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend recently who reminded me that you hardly ever see anybody over 30 working at Foxtons; which is great for sex appeal, but not so good when trying to sell property in London. In essence, Foxtons appear to be trying to appeal to a younger, more tech savvy demographic, but the problem is that most young tech savvy people in London can’t afford or don’t buy property in London. And the few that can and do, well why would they use Foxtons, given their less than stellar reputation. 
I’m going to assume that the company makes the bulk of their revenue from lettings. I’m basing this on the fact that they’re so obviously appealing to young people, and young London may not buy, but they sure do rent.
This poses another problem since a lot of landlords – especially those that have significant portfolios – are dubious about doing business with the big F(u), a company that has been known to and caught on camera forging landlords signatures. Nevertheless, the company has been making strides to clean up their act, and joining the Ombudsman Scheme for Estate Agents was definitely a big step, although they’re not yet members of the more influential and credit worthy National Association of Estate Agents.
3i eying Foxtons?
February 27, 2007 at 10:15 am | In deals, foxtons | Leave a Comment
After loosing the opportunity to buy out Countrywide PLC, the private equity group is now apparently chasing Foxtons.
[the infamous Foxtons mini]
Officebroker.com brokers £3 million deal with Regus
February 19, 2007 at 12:56 pm | In agents, ftse | Leave a Comment
Online office space broker Officebroker.com is celebrating after Sales Manager Dan Murphy brokered a £3m deal for FTSE traded Regus – the UK’s leading supplier of outsourced workplaces. The £3m contract, has been named the single biggest transaction secured by Regus in the second half of 2006, and was recognised at the Regus awards ceremony which took place in London last week.
Dan, who works at Officebroker.com’s Staffordshire office, picked up the award for the contract between Regus and a communications business that took just under 10,000 square feet of space at a Regus’ business centres in Bracknell.
Officebroker.com was also named ‘Brokerage of the Year 2006’ at the ceremony reflecting the company’s phenomenal growth since launching five years ago.
BrightSale’s MD defines what it means to be 2.0
January 22, 2007 at 5:58 pm | In agents, brightsale | 2 CommentsLast week, we posted a write-up on Brightsale.co.uk, a “2.0″ start-up. While impressed with the business model, we were a little unsure as to whether they were serious about what they were doing or just riding the current 2.0 hype. Well Brightsale’s MD Andy Etches caught wind of our post and emailed us with his definition of a 2.0 value system and why he felt Brightsale fit the bill. Here’s a portion of his email:
We believe we embrace all of the values that the 2.0 school of thought stands for. We are open, honest, community focussed and user driven. We are hoping to streamline the process of buying and selling houses here in the UK using new technology and some very well thought out processes.
Over the next few weeks we will be releasing some new features which will give our customers more power than any before. I’d like to take a minute to give you an exclusive sneak peak at some of the things we have in development.
The messaging centre
For the first time, buyers and sellers will be able to communicate directly through our messaging system. Whereas many estate agents here in the UK keep their customers as far apart as possible for fear of being bypassed. Our customers will be able to securely talk with their buyer or seller, giving a level of transparency that has never before been possible. BrightSale.co.uk will allow the members of the community to use technology to talk without boundaries.
Search cloud
We will be launching a search cloud, which will show at a glance the most popular towns and counties that our users are looking for property in.
The viewings calendar
Our sellers will be able to set specific timeslots when their property will be available to view. If a buyer decides they want to view that property they will be able to select one of these timeslots and it will immediately be allocated to that buyer. Sellers and buyers will immediately be notified of the viewing by email, all parties will be sent a reminder email 5 hours before the viewing is scheduled. Your calendars can be synced with iCal and Outlook for convenience. We believe this is a great tool which takes much of the pain out of viewing property. No more will people have to go back and forth to estate agents on the phone and jump through hoops just to view a property.
Maps
I note this, specifically as you mentioned it. We are working on a couple of map projects, one really exciting (but staying under wraps for the moment) and the others just great. We will be of course integrating a map of every property on every page, showing the satellite view and road map. The ability to search the sites properties via a map is also a feature under development. Our main feature ties everything together and is unique to the UK, it is designed, again to empower the users with information whilst at the same time increasing the chances of everyone achieving a sale. Once this feature goes live, I’ll be sure to let you know.
I hope you found this email interesting. I’m sure now you will see we are not simply using the “2.0″ phrase as a buzzword to jump on a bandwagon. We really are hoping to bring all of the good qualities of the next generation of the internet to the UK property market.
Pretty innovative stuff, but do they have what it takes to bridge next generation internet to the property market? Will the industry support, vilify or attempt to destroy? Will the general public take notice or even care?
Post your comments; we’re eager for your thoughts …
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