It has been reported that LSL Property Services, which owns Your Move, is to close 12 branches with the loss of 315 jobs across its surveying and estate agency businesses. The closures come after property sales fell, and the news has sparked fears that the property slowdown could force restructuring across the wider industry.
Estate agents have blamed a sharp drop in the level of transactions since the credit crunch, and stated that if the slowdown continued many of the UK’s 8,750 estate agency firms could become unsustainable.
Hometrack admitted that it expected transactions to drop by 17 per cent during 2008, with these volumes the first casualty of the credit crunch.
Many home owners are thought to be holding on for changes that have been predicted to come during April which should allow them to reduce their capital gains tax bills.
Dean Fielding, LSL’s group finance director, said: “It is very difficult to see where the market is going to land. Our larger competitors are doing similar things. They have no choice.”
Stewart Lilly, President at the National Association of Estate Agents, commented: “When market conditions toughen it is not unusual to see the larger, corporate estate agencies reacting first. Of course, not all corporate agencies will follow this pattern.
“In those organisations where the senior managers have worked their way up from the bottom of the estate agency career ladder, for example, there is often a greater understanding of how the property market works. This can mean that the managers are more adept at coping with changes.
Lilly concluded: “The message here is to not panic. We’ve had tricky and testing times before and the market has always bounced back.”
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