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Housing market on fire still.
LONDON, June 29 (Reuters) – British house prices jumped by the most in more than 16 years this month when they were 13.4% higher than in June last year and demand is expected to remain strong in the coming months, mortgage lender Nationwide said on Tuesday.
In monthly terms, house prices were 0.7% higher than in May as buyers rushed to take advantage of a tax break offered by finance minister Rishi Sunak.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected prices to rise by 13.7% in annual terms and by 0.7% from May.
"While the strength is partly due to base effects, with June last year unusually weak due to the first lockdown, the market continues to show significant momentum," Nationwide's chief economist Robert Gardner said.
The tax break, introduced last year as part of Sunak's emergency support for the economy during the pandemic, had originally been due to expire at the end of March.
But the first 500,000 pounds ($693,600) of any property purchase in England or Northern Ireland are now due to remain exempt until the end of June, and a 250,000 pound tax-free allowance will run until the end of September.
"Underlying demand is likely to remain solid in the near term as the economy unlocks," Gardner said.
"Consumer confidence has rebounded while borrowing costs remain low. This, combined with a lack of supply on the market, suggests further upward pressure on prices. But as we look toward the end of the year, the outlook is harder to foresee."
Some large trades gone through today, only a week to wait for results & plans for the future.
Exciting times.
About 30mins in.
ULS mentioned and seems excited by the new CEO and his plans. https://youtu.be/Ppt16lTCZ9g
Expanding sales team: https://www.financialreporter.co.uk/finance-news/uls-technology-expands-sales-team.html
Watching someone going through the process of house buying this last few months, they were introduced to the Digitalmove site & found it extremely helpful.
Housing market very busy still.
Bought few more today
I think its going to take the market a while to understand the significance of the potential of ULS to radically shake up the uk house buying process. I bought some more this morning, unfortunately I couldn't stretch to 70,000 like another buyer did, although at a bit of a premium. There is high Institutional ownership, about 78% I think which will make this a little volatile both ways
https://bestadvice.co.uk/uls-technology-in-panel-management-deal-with-mpowered-mortgages/
Exactly those who adopt technical solutions and their associated benefits will increase their own case throughput and gain from such adoptions. Others will continue using fax machines and plod along but eventually will need to get smart or go out of business.
This industry definitely needs a major disruption and the new CEO knows it.
Aim I think the point Fogstrup realises and makes very well is reaching the pain point in terms of the speed of house transactions. He is well experienced in making relevant partnerships to improve the service of house buying and selling from his experience with meerkats.com. Estate agents get it, the Land registry get it, us the customers get it. The ones that need convincing are solicitors. I swear some still write with quills. House purchasing without hiccups used to take about 12 weeks which is pretty pathetic. Now it is taking 16 18 weeks which is scandalous. Many solicitors are refusing to speak to clients or estate agents and turning down business because they are so inefficient and refuse to change with the times. Once a few more of them realise speeding the process up means happier customers but mainly more money the others will have to follow or go out of business. I've actually had to assist solicitors in my last two house purchases about information I actually want and searches I don't want, need or ask for not to be done. In fact I lost the purchase on one house because of their inability to even use common sense. Most information is already there to access in digital form from planning offices to environmental searches and Land registry. It seems there are still too many solicitors that don't know how to access this information without writing series of letters which takes weeks and creates an unfathomable paper trail of utter confusion. So yes we need the pain of too much business for solicitors to handle to force them to change.
I disagree that we need a strong housing market. There are over 1m annual property transactions. Our existing market share is tiny. That's a lot of conveyancing activities that could be digitized and automated. In either bull or bear markets the conveyancing industry should be looking at efficiency savings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YgXY1Y5Y2g. Fascinating interview with Fogstrup giving us some insight into his background and how that connects with developing the undoubtedly potential here especially wth the launch of a new app. As we know apps are or can be a real goldmine. It is early doors possibly and we are heavily reliant on continuing strong housing market. The potential however is massive for such a small company and as River Mercantile point out practically zilch for this priced and a third of market cap held fro great offload. I did sell down on the news as the shares hit a £1.00, not because I don't think the are worth it, but you kind of just know how the market is going to react 9 times out of 10. I hadn't actually seen this interview with the new CEO, so I am rapidly buying back on this weakness, although It my take the market some time to appreciate the potential here and for them to be able to demonstrate that worth in hard numbers. Definitely one to accumulate , just not sure how far it will drift.
Bought some today
Right on cue. 24 million in cash (0ver 30% of their market cap). Revenue up about 80% loss of .8 million. We had a chat with an estate agent yesterday who reported the most frenzied activity he had known in 30 years. Completions taking much longer and solicitors turning away conveyancing work and not taking calls from distressed buyers.
Would refer you to Essexexile's post a few posts back for user assessment. I think the fund manager hit the nails on the head. Great offload , tons of cash, early days for Digital Move of which nothing is priced in. Low market share, massive potential. Would expect rerate on update in housing boom market, but who knows , weird market at the moment a bit in doldrums.
Should get a trading update soon? Given significant increase in property transactions in H2 I expect well get a positive update and strong guidance on H1 2021 forecast.
Will be interesting to see if the need to process cases faster has led to increased adoption of DigitalMove amongst the conveyancing industry.
I'm also curious to see how the CEO communicates his vision for DigitalMove and what they have in the pipeline if revealed.
Do you have anyone on this board working in the conveyancing, or mortgage lending sector's? Would be keen to hear thoughts from the within on this Digital transformation.
ULS briefly discussed on V O X Markets (Paul Hill interview with River & Mercantile Portfolio Manager, George Ensor) 51:35
https://youtu.be/wEtusObISCQ
Some decent buying today on no news. Glad to see it heading up again, actually not that glad this was one I was going to add more to the ISA. Be interesting if there is anything behind this sudden burst of enthusiasm
Added at 81.7p today.
ULS has a fair chunk of cash on the balance sheet and at this price seem pretty reasonable value.
a bit flat. Heres to a strong 2021!
Kestrel do not appear to takeover companies. They go for large minority stakes.
They then provide inputs ie change of CFO and/or CEO and/or Chairman were required.
They also provide input on strategy.
Then at an appropriate growth point they look for a trade exit.
The RNS for Kestrel gets their total holding close to 30% of shares (28.8%) . Question is are they lining something up or are is it for defensive reasons to avoid a buy out happening. Long term future for this company is immense
I bought these earlier in the year and am definitely a lth.
As a mortgage broker by trade I use these for circa 50% of all my cases..
We are experiencing a huge uplift on volume and as such I expect the to feed through to the share price.
There are 80+ brokers in my firm and from the half year comments they have signed up even more firms.
Whilst purchases may contract early next year remortgages won't and they are one of the few firms that mange to do this efficiently and at a reasonable cost as an alternative to the lenders own chosen conveyancers.
Just my humble opinion.