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You must be joking !!!

I have mentioned the success of the Foxtons Auction team during the last quarter, their best since 2016 and here's just more evidence that Foxtons are continuing to do extremely well during August in both their rentals and sales divisions in the South and South West of London as an example :-

' Our biggest 'ever' week and record August for offers agreed in sales!' &

'A record month in New Malden & Sutton lettings under the amazing leadership of Suganth Wimalendran'

The liknedin article in full :-

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-stevenson-8a626b154_foxtons-wegetitdone-careers-activity-7102566853306114048-oZdB?trk=public_profile_share_view

Wow, its come round quick !! Not too many headlines in the news (no doubt by design) and whilst Putin will be 'skyping' or similar from his Moscow office, Xi Jinping will be there in person along with 40 odd other world leaders and representatives.

Lets see what the Yank Banks and Biden have up their sleeve, remember GS did say that they will do everything to preserve the US Dollar and its role as the worlds reserve currency !

Crash paper Gold, quite possibly ??

And just one more Linkedin post :-

'......Year to date these superstars have delivered record organic revenue and volume growth in lettings and in a testing sales market generated double digit market share growth for both sales and new instructions. '

And in full :-

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/james-stevenson-8a626b154_wegetitdone-foxtons-activity-7093256231942811648-BKQg?trk=public_profile_like_view

25 trades executed in the market this morning of which two were buys , 24 shares @ 39.9025 and 3 shares 39.70.

Brilliant stuff, more of those big buys again please this afternoon !! :))

And further signs that Foxtons are doing exceedingly well despite all the gloom and doom surrounding the property market sector currently :-

'Today we welcomed 18 Foxtons Superstars to HQ where they picked up their new target cars, having worked relentlessly this year to deliver the right deal for hundreds of our clients.

We followed Alexandra Elliott dropping off her car to pick up her first target car (a new electric MINI Cooper), while Jack Cuthbert and Sofia Reis were both returning to pick up the keys to their next target car, following some phenomenal results in 2023 already.

Part of the joy that this special morning brings to me is knowing what a fantastic job my team has done for our clients and remembering how much this acknowledgment from the business meant to me in my early career. Congratulations everyone! '

And the link and video :-

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/foxtons_congratulation-to-everyone-who-picked-up-activity-7097575110793940992-89PF

Needs a bit of attention, lets see what I can find out !

'There are suggestions in the market that an investment bank is already in Newcrest’s corner for a sale.'

Yep, no doubt either JPM or Goldman's are rubbing their grubby hands with the prospect !!

Courtesy of the property eye industry website , rents are marching on regardless :-

'Figures from the latest Foxtons’ Letting Market Index show that average weekly rent in the capital in July 2023 was 12% higher than July 2022.

Analysis of London data also showed a 6% increase in new listings compared to the previous year.'

“We’ve seen expected growth and are now into a more consistent busy market we normally see at this time of year. As such, the market will remain highly competitive through summer.”

And the article in full :-

https://propertyindustryeye.com/london-rents-up-12-foxtons/

Ctd....

Affordability will be consigned to just a selected few in the UK and like Germany the country will become a nation of renters !

This is also a good video clip from last year :-

https://propertyindustryeye.com/private-equity-firms-target-dealmaking-opportunities-in-the-estate-agency-sector/#:~:text=Private%20equity%20firms%20are%20increasingly%20targeting%20estate%20and,to%20Jon%20Cooke%2C%20CEO%20of%20nurtur.group%2C%20formerly%20epropservices.

I mentioned my meeting up with some old friends last week and quelle surprise the main topic of conversation was money, retirement and pension funds, with the state of the property market being the main focus. I guess not too dissimilar with many group and household conversations up and down the country presently.

We all agreed that the BOE and the government are purposely colluding to make property ownership a pipe dream for the masses in the not too distant future and 'controlled' rents by the banks and government will be the norm in a few years time as they together with US hedge Funds/Private Equity groups will become the biggest landlords in the country.

So what does this mean for estate agents ?

Well, you will have noticed that in the last six months UK property sales have fallen off a cliff and this was further bourn out with the statement and results that the Company Savills published last week and I have said before on here, property sales is no longer the main driver now or in the future of a successful estate agent's business.

To have a successful Estate Agent business you will need a growing rental division as well as other areas of the business aside from sales and as per many on-line tweets, linkedin posts etc. Foxtons are ticking all the boxes and seem to be making money hand over fist in all areas of their business i.e. Alexander Hall, auction sales, rental book growth etc.

Over 70% of income generated in H1 for Foxtons was down to their rental division with this percentage increasing year on year and expect this figure to increase nearer the 80% mark come the end of the year.

I mentioned my meeting with friends last week and amongst many stories about the troubles of the economy and the BS that the government and BOE are telling the masses, one of the group mentioned that his son has decided to sell up after being a landlord of ten properties. He's decided to get out quick whilst still in profit and where is he going to market his portfolio of properties, yes the Auctions !!!

One of his rentals has seen the annual service charge go from £2500 in 2020 to £7000 this year alone, this being on top of his 'buy-to-let' finance exposure to increasing borrowing rates.

He has a few rentals in Canary Wharf and was expecting to see a flood of apartments come to the market this week, he wasn't disappointed. Over 100 apartments were newly listed on Friday alone on the Zoopla website :-

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/property/london/e14/poplar-isle-of-dogs-millwall/

There now over 2000 apartments for sale in Canary Wharf alone !

Come September when families return from their holidays, kids back to school, credit card bills arriving some two weeks later and the BOE raising rates yet again despite no-one spending money on the high street, expect a flood of more properties to hit Estate Agent's windows.

Affordability will be consigned to just a selected few in the UK and like Germany the country will bec

So, Foxtons may be returning to Hong Kong as well as having its London presence. Must have escaped Mr. Gittins memory when he compiled the interims !

https://cy.linkedin.com/posts/foxtons_foxtons-foxtonsasiapacific-hongkong-activity-7042526968973533185-nmh7

All very strange, here are the videos uploaded already form the conference this morning but now with one notable exception ?

I take it, the wider market was well aware of Greatland going from an explorer to a miner previously ?

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeSnbgsRrmmHjFxtw-BtDpQ/videos

A nice and polished delivery by SD and at 8minutes and 35 seconds into the presentation, '...........and that's where we're going to start mining' !

Just in case if anyone had doubted the fact previously.

The Yank Banks can do what they like with 'paper' Gold, we've got the real stuff !!!!!!!!!

Nice.

The link :-

https://greatlandgold.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/2023.08.07-Greatland-Diggers-Dealers-Presentation.pdf

Yep, even more evidence to support my case that Mr. Gittins has been very economical with the truth and Foxtons are doing a lot better than we are led to believe. There are countless linkedin posts with regards to the company posted by some of its staff, each one just as bullish as the next as I found out last night.

The race to recruit extra staff is also on, look at this link 63 job vacancies currently at Foxtons across ALL divisions, despite Mr Gittins telling us all that he was looking to streamline costs :-

https://uk.indeed.com/cmp/Foxtons

The more I look into this company and the dealings in the shares, the more I am convinced its deliberately being held back from the 40p level which I have mentioned a few times now.

There is book called 'Black Edge' written by Sheelah Kolhatkar written sometime ago now but well worth a read and in a nutshell its about how American Hedge Funds target Directors and CEOs of companies to get the 'inside' info before buying stock in Dark Pools as a prelude for stake building or bidding for a company, all perfectly legal of course in the eyes of American Law.

Has Mr. Gittins already been courted, I wonder ??

I am meeting with friends this week, we are a bunch of recently retirees and we all exchange investment ideas etc. as well as trying to put the world to right and one guy who worked as a VC still has many contacts in the industry, so I will put my findings as well as my thoughts to him this week.

Hopefully I can get more buyers of the stock over the next few weeks before everyone gets back from their Summer holidays and I will also subscribe to the Redditt site this week and put forward my thinking over there as well.

The more buyers of Foxtons stock we can generate the harder it will be for any potential bidder to succeed in any cheap offer for the company.

And if Mr. Gittins wants to continue to play down the fortunes of Foxtons to the city and the financial media then that's good for us, we'll be more than happy to buy stock at less than 40p.

5eights.

Thanks for the comments team and the respective replies.

Just another note about the Auctions team at Foxtons and their collaboration with BidX1 as I mentioned a few weeks back. As I said previously, nothing was mentioned in either the full year numbers in March nor the interims last month but the Foxton's website seems to be updated, here's an extract from the site about one of Foxtons Auction Sales team members :-

....'Ahmed started his career at Foxtons in 2019 as a Move Consultant. He was a member of the South East division and was responsible for bringing stock to market in the Greenwich, Blackheath and Dulwich areas. Having learned his trade on a fast paced and dynamic sales floor, he was given the opportunity to join the newly established Foxtons Auction team. In the years Ahmed has spent with Auctions, the department has gone from strength to strength - they had a record year in 2022, selling over 142 properties.'

Yep, 'selling 142 properties' in 2022 and remember my post about the Foxton's Auction reaching a 'milestone' in June this year ??

Here's the link to Foxtons Auctions and to add this is not solely London listings as the company states , 'Through our partnership with BidX1, the Foxtons Auction team have helped homeowners across the country fulfil their property aspirations, from detached family homes in Liverpool to luxury apartments in Chelsea.......'

https://www.foxtons.co.uk/auctions

I'll be doing more digging around later today !!

Just following up from yesterday and I'm looking into the 'working capital' expenditure figures that Gittins announced in the interims although to get a full and complete breakdown of the numbers will be extremely difficult as us shareholders are not privy to that sort of information sadly, no matter how hard we search !

The '£3.2m' returned to shareholders after just a 0.2p dividend announced will be a lot easier to decipher especially as there are just 320m shares odd in issue. Some £2.6m has allegedly been spent in share buybacks in the last six months according to these numbers, so that's around 7-8m shares would have been bought back in the last six months.

Just need to total the last six months of share buybacks announced in those RNS's , 7-8m shares bought back by the company ??

And finally, I mentioned the 27,000 rental clients on Foxtons books currently although this figure was challenged by the 4000 additional clients to last years numbers in June of this year and as per the Foxtons June rental newsletter, thus increasing the amount of rental clients to 31,000 at the very least.

Now take a look at this article published on the Property notify website, it states 'June 2023 saw almost 35,500 new listings which was over 4000 listings more than last June.......'

Yes, 35,500 !!

And whilst I'm very sceptical of many news publications on-line especially the financial ones, I tend to agree here, especially more so now as rental clients are now signing up for term extensions on existing rental agreements and 18-24 months are now more popular than short-term tenancies.

Here's the article in full and puts more on the bones to my thinking that Gittins is holding back with regards to the current performance of Foxtons and I will stand by my prediction that this will be Foxton's best ever year since they came back to the market in 2013 :-

https://www.propertynotify.co.uk/news/foxtons-lettings-market-index-applicant-demand-up-19-in-june/

Indeed, a lot better !

Here's a few pointers, in the linkedin article which I previously posted there must be around £1m worth of cars being awarded to staff (32 in total), add to that taxes, fleet insurance etc. This being on top of the 350 Mini Coopers that were awarded to staff at the beginning of the year.

Then scroll further down where it highlights the current success of the Auctions Division at Foxtons and it states .......

'Foxtons has a variety of ways to support the property owners of London to get the right deal done. Our modern Auctions Team are an increasingly popular choice for homeowners and a valued part of Foxtons, so we were delighted to celebrate an important milestone with them yesterday. Congratulations team, there’s still over five months of 2023 to go so we're excited to see how many more clients you can help this year'

What is that Milestone and why wasn't there any mention of the Auction sales in the interim statement ??

And in the interim report of last year, Foxtons reported approx. 27,000 rental clients were on their books and this figure was more or less reported again last week.

But now take a look at the latest Lettings report published by Foxtons in June just last month :-

https://www.foxtons.co.uk/reports/lettings-report/lettings-market-report-june-2023

and in particular on page 2 where it states :-

'London saw over 4000 more new listings than it did last June. However, demand is already on the rise - 19% on month in June- and August and September mark the traditional Summer peak.........'

We know Alexander Hall had its best ever month in June as well, again no mention of that either ??

And we also know that Foxtons generates the majority of its profits in cash, so how can it be in the red as per the latest interims and that its £2m in debt ??

The company puts it down to 'restructuring' and in addition once again Gittins highlights the uncertainty of the housing market going forward for the rest of the year but as I have mentioned before rentals will be the primary driver of profits for Foxtons for the future and quelle surprise just look what Gittins had to say back in January :-

'Foxtons has traditionally derived the bulk of its income from selling properties. But Gittins told the FT that the way to boost profits from the £5.6m before tax posted last year was to expand in letting sector.

“Our model is very much expansion through acquisition: there are 3,600 independent agents operating within the M25 who all have lettings incomes and clients,” he said.

The full article :-

https://propertyindustryeye.com/new-fleet-of-mini-cooper-cars-to-help-restore-pride-at-foxtons-says-guy-gittins/

I will look into the acquisition spend later today.

Hope this helps.

I had another look at the interims over the weekend together with the statement put out by Guy Gittins and compared it with his narrative at the reporting of the final year figures announced in March and I can't help thinking that he down played the interims somewhat.

And just browsing through some of the linkedin posts over the last few days, I came across this. I know Foxtons gets a bad rap about their mini clubmans whizzing around London but scroll down and play the video in this link.

I think Mr Gittins is trying to pull the wool over our eyes :-

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/foxtons_from-all-at-foxtons-we-hope-you-have-a-lovely-activity-6880459685858693120-zuYL

Ah yes, 8x the volume of yesterday the day of the interims and 635,000 in the U/T of today to disguise all of today's trades.

Nothing to see here 😉

Yep, another decent set of numbers reported in the interims this morning, here's the opening extract from a story published on the Negotiator website earlier ;-

'.........The bad old days of disastrous results for Foxtons are behind the company as both a super-hot lettings market and a revived sales team have pushed revenues up by 9% and profits by 10%, its latest results show.

Revenue increased by £5 million to £70 million year-on-year while operating profit increased by £600,000 to £6.8 million....'

And the article in full :-

https://thenegotiator.co.uk/foxtons-finally-feels-the-gittins-gold-as-profits-surge-10/

And again just like the reporting of those excellent full year numbers back in March, don't expect to see the stock go on a massive run upwards.

A lid at 40p or thereabouts will be the market price going forward that is until those waiting in the wings and keeping an eye on the fortunes of Foxtons finally decide to declare their hands.

Keep adding on those manipulated market dips !!!