November 2010

ESTATE AGENCY SURVEY 2010

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General subject: How has the downturn in the property market since 2008 affected your business in terms of workforce, tools and advertising/marketing?

Name of business: Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward

Your name and role: Emilie-Kate Owen, Communications Managers

Head Office location: Wimbledon, London

Number of offices as at Sept 30, 2010: 41

Number of offices at Sept 30, 2009: 39

How does the way the company works now compare with 12 months ago?

Size of workforce? Up by 15%

Use of associates (as opposed to employees)? Unchanged

Use of software (e.g. Vebra)? Unchanged

Have you imposed any major changes, such as additional services, in light of the downturn in the property market? No.
What has been the reaction (from your company and clients) to HIPs being gone? Delight!
Use of advertising media: portal sites, newspapers, etc., specifically:

• Where do you prefer to list and why? Do you list on more than one site? Why? We list on all the main portals (paid for and free to list). They still generate large volumes of enquiries and there is an expectation from clients that we will promote their property on portals.

• Rightmove pushed through a listing price increase. What is your reaction? We’re about to start this year’s renewal discussions with Rightmove so we’re unable to say more than that.

• Are you developing the use of branding options offered on sites? We’ve tested some of the Rightmove products with varying degrees of success. It’s not something we’re actively pursuing at the moment.

• Are you using newspapers? How frequently? More or less frequently than in 2008? Are publishers raising prices? Any concerns regarding the use of print media? We use national and regional newspapers only (Sunday Times and Evening Standard) on a weekly basis for most of the year and have increased our presence this year compared with 2008. We also use local monthly magazines across London. There is still a place for print media but we’re using it differently from five years ago and in considerably lesser volumes. We’re about to enter into media negotiations for 2011 so are yet to see publishers’ expectations on rates.

• How do you intend to change your use of advertising media over the coming year? We will continue our move into online advertising (non portal) and also increase our investment in search engine marketing.

Any other comments on the current economic situation and how it affects your business?