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Certainly things have picked up and a rising tide lifts all boats Noticeable that in towns where LSL brands compete with CWD they are the poor relation in terms of inventory and numbers sold
Talks of dividends cranking up again anytime soon are premature
Marsh & Parsons where at the the beginning of july they had less than 70 showing on Zoopla sold STC or under offer things have improved since easing of lockdown but that was from a very low base
A number of M&P branches still suffering from a paucity of instructions and a lack of deals
Islington for example
Sales inventory just 19 with just 1 showing under offer .Running on empty
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/branch/marsh-and-parsons-islington-london-88412/
Compared with Countrywide brand Hamptons in Islington
Inventory 128. 36 under offer and 12 sold STC
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/find-agents/branch/hamptons-international-islington-sales-london-3592/
Foxtons Islington
Sales inventory 133
19 under offer
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/find-agents/branch/foxtons-islington-london-2892/
Great insight from an estate agent I follow on twitter: https://twitter.com/Space_Robot1/status/1296164991616331780
This is going to fly once the dividend returns, there is not enough stock on the books of estate agents, surveyors are all backed up with work, and you struggling to speak to mortgage advisers these days.
Loads of good press but the shares are almost unmoved! LSL is a very thinly traded stock.
https://www.cityam.com/housing-market-mini-boom-accelerates-as-buying-substitutes-summer-holidays/
Adjusted EPS of 9.4p requires a bit of faith in the adjustments but in a covid affected H1 that looks like a very good result (better than last year). No damage to the balance sheet and the liquidity position looks more than adequate. With some pent up demand in the UK housing market and a tailwind from the cut in stamp duty I think this stock looks like excellent value @ ~200p. I think it highly likely the dividend will return come the full year results.
I bought quite a few yesterday. Had to pay over ask and spread was dreadful, ~6%. Looking forward to tomorrow's update.
There is a mini boom going on in the housing market at the moment, I’m interested to see how this filters through into figures for LSL, hopefully should make up for some of the losses during the lock down period. Financial services side of the business should have held up fairly well.
This should wake the market up!
No change at Marsh & Parsons -very quiet
31 offices
Sales inventory 880ish
Just 59 properties showing as sold subject to contract
50% of offices with 1 or less SSTC
6 offices 15 or less instructions
Encouraging news this morning but still a complete absence of U/O and SSTC Marsh & Parsons instructions.
Many of the offices with a big fat 0
Must be envious of Bricks where fresh instructions have risen sharply taking the fee at the door
London looks tricky. Just taking a look at Marsh & Parsons expensively rented 31 branch network on Zoopla. Many offices with very few instructions, 12 branches have under 20 instructions which is unsustainable and very few properties showing under offer or SSTC .What are they returning too ?
Just look at Islington 6 sales instructions.1 letting An average listing time of 38 weeks They must be operating at a huge loss
https://www.zoopla.co.uk/find-agents/branch/marsh-and-parsons-islington-london-88412/
A raft of letting instructions as well The risk is of course unfurloughing the staff into a patchy market where the company has been enjoying their wage bills being paid by HMRC
Its going to be really difficult for the forseeable future getting deals over the line in an uncertain market
Not sure any level of market activity in the next month or two will matter. The bigger picture is 2 million jobs are expected to be cut before employees return to work. There should be a rising demand to sell at distressed prices by the end of this year. Not everyone will enjoy the 'bounce-back' assuming there is one.
What is everyone’s thoughts about estate agents re opening?
FJ
You can look back on the 24th February as definitely one of the best decisions you made putting some hay in the barn Maybe even thanking CWD for causing you to run a mile !
Looks like a managerial vanity project to me.
Fj
The banks must be offering up CWD at a distressed price that might be the only explanation
LSL have been booking exceptional costs to close some of their own branches. Why would they now want to take on a load more and the lease liabilities that come with them?
Sold all my shares this morning. Was planning to hold for the long term but I don't want anything to do with CWD unless it's shorting their stock. What are LSL thinking?!
LSL will be taking on £95m of CWD's debt who seemingly have no place to go after the abortive sale of LSH lSL certainly don 't want to take on any of CWD;s main board directors Should give this a wide berth unless at a completely distressed price
From BBC: Property website Rightmove said it had its busiest-ever month in January with more than 150 million visits.
The top five busiest days ever on the site were all between 21 and 29 January, with Wednesday 29th topping the list with more than 5.7 million visits, up 9% on the previous record set on 24 April 2019.
“Home-movers have sprung into action in 2020, with a large number of agents telling us that sales and valuations have picked up significantly in their local areas," said Rightmove director Miles Shipside.
Decided to double my position. About the best value stock I can find at the moment.
I came to the same conclusion. Discounted SVS as I wanted something with domestic focus. FOXT looks overvalued, doesn't make any money and doesn't pay a dividend. CWD might go bust. Didn't like the balance sheet of HUNT.
Over 5x average daily volume has gone through today already.
F15jcm
Yes -the best of a bad lot Marsh & Parsons tick a lot of boxes
Steady as she goes. Medium term post-Brexit value play on offer here IMO.