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Some good news

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    Some good news

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...bt-crunch.html

    The future of London's biggest estate agency chain Foxtons has been thrown into doubt by the unprecedented slump in home sales.
    The chain, known for the fleet of liveried Minis used by its staff, has broken one of the terms of its £260 million of bank loans following the collapse in its commission income.

    But its current owner, private equity firm BC Partners, has refused to inject more cash into the agency, leaving its fate in the hands of lenders Bank Of America and Japanese bank Mizuho.

    Foxtons was sold for £360 million by its founder Jon Hunt in May 2007, just as the frenzied property boom was reaching its climax.
    BC Partners today admitted 'we made a wrong call' in the price and timing of the deal.

    Managing partner Andrew Newington said: 'As housing markets fall, so do estate agents, so we got that wrong. In hindsight, we made the wrong assessment of the market.'


    I hope these arrogant fookers go to the wall!

    #2
    Rental Contract

    Nothing would please me more, sleazy barstewards.

    I have a rental contract with them, how would that affect it?

    I suppose the contract is with the landlord so it will stay in place?
    There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think

    Comment


      #3
      HURRAY!

      DIE GREEN AND YELLOW SCUMBAGS DIE!

      I was flat hunting last autumn and Foxtons were sole letters for a nice flat, I asked them what their fees were.

      £380 +VAT

      I then proceeded to ask how they costed this up as I don't think I will get anywhere near £380 +VAT worth of service from them, especially considering the flat wasnt even managed by them!

      Total bulltulip spiel about adding value and industry knowledge etc.

      Told em to **** off.

      They recently opened a brand new very expensive looking glass walled office in central london, a few months before financial armageddon struck and the housing market tanked. The place is completely empty every day.

      hope they go under.

      Comment


        #4
        I hope they go under as well..

        I’ve lived and rented in several countries globally, when I first arrived in London I found a nice flat through Foxtons. I put an offer in at which point they outlined their exorbitant fees, I questioned the fee and was informed ‘this is a standard fee that all the estate agents charge in the UK’. This didn’t add up based on my experience elsewhere so decided to do so shopping around, low and behold they don’t all charge this for 30 minutes work!

        To this day I can’t understand how they can even come close to justifying this fee on top of the landlords 10% letting fee charged in perpetuity, well at least as long as that tenant is in the property..

        If they weren’t so greedy maybe they would not be in such bad shape – I’ll never buy, rent or sell through those bloodsuckers!

        Comment


          #5
          Foxtons going tits up would be (is?!) bad news for me, as their web apps use perl, and they have several tulip-hot perl guru permies (enthusiastic members of the London perl mongers group etc, who have probably written perl books). The last thing I need is that kind of competition on the contract market
          Work in the public sector? Read the IR35 FAQ here

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