LSL has cautioned that it is expecting a “material” fall in the number of house sales this year. LSL’s share price yesterday stayed up, but Countrywide’s fell to a new low.

The LSL warning of low transactions is in its annual report for 2018, a year in which its pre-tax profits fell 42% from £40.1m to £23.1m.

The annual report describes this as a resilient performance in subdued market conditions, and warns that “market conditions in 2019 have been notably softer than the equivalent in 2018”.

Simon Embley, chairman, says in the report that LSL’s performance so far this year has been marginally behind the board’s expectations.

Although the board expects full-year performance to be in line with expectations, Embley also cautions: “The board currently expects to see a material reduction in the volume of house purchase transactions compared to the prior year.”

Group chief executive Ian Crabb echoes the comments.

He also says in the report that this year’s reduction in Your Move and Reeds Rains branches from 308 to 144 ‘keystone’ branches is expected to deliver “material improvement” in operating profits for the two brands.

The annual report shows that before this year’s drastic pruning of offices and jobs, LSL had been only lightly trimming its branches while building staff numbers.

By the end of last year, it had 491 branches via all its brands, down from 505 in 2017. However, total headcount was up as at December 31 at 5,463, compared with 5,084 the year before. This year, LSL has confirmed redundancies as part of the branch closures programme, although not the number.

The annual report also reveals a 9% increase in basic salary for Crabb this year, rising from £412,000 last year to £449,000 this.

Helen Buck, executive director of estate agency, gets a 1.5% hike in her basic salary to £309,000.

Chairman Simon Embley received a rise in his payment last August from £130,000 a year to £137,500.

Altogether last year, Embley received £132,500; Crabb received £774,629; and Buck received £458,576.

LSL’s annual general meeting is on April 30.

LSL’s share price was stable yesterday at about 253p.

By contrast, Countrywide’s share price dropped to an all-time low yesterday, at 8p.

It picked up only slightly to finish at 8.3p, according to the London Stock Exchange.

The Property Franchise Group share price put on over 4% yesterday, finishing at about 132p.

Belvoir’s share price was static at about 101p, but is sharply up from the low of 87p at the start of this year.

Purplebricks’ share price also barely moved, going up less than 0.1% to close at about 126p.

The fall in Countrywide’s share price comes after it issued its annual report, which sounded an upbeat note about the next three years of its turnaround plan.