London agent Dexters has bucked the market by posting strong results, with pre-tax profits shooting up to £6.3m and revenues increasing to £87m.
The results, which have only just been published, are for the year to the end of last September. Prudent management, cost control and, most of all, a belief in its staff all played a part.
The comparable figures for the previous 12 months were £75m revenue and £4.8m profit.
Altogether Dexters earned £32m from sales – up from £26m the previous year – with the lion’s share of £50m coming from lettings, up from £44m.
However, average revenue per employee dropped slightly from £74,000 to £71,000, while the cost of sales and admin both rose, from £41m to £48m in the case of sales, and from £25m to £28m in the case of admin.
Head count also grew, from 1,004 to 1,226 with six acquisitions during the year. Notably the highest paid director, un-named in the accounts, took a pay cut – going from £639,000 down to £564,000.
Dexters was founded by chief executive Jeff Doble 26 years ago.
The accounts note that Dexters’ strong performance was against a backdrop of a “challenging housing market in London, government intervention into the market, and uncertainty around the UK exiting the European Union”.
The accounts stress the importance of staff to Dexters, saying that management is “very focused on retaining employees”, looking to retain 80% and putting considerable resources, both financial and non-financial, into investing in employees and their careers. Staff training is prioritised, and they are also able to access share deals.
Dexters is privately owned and is claimed to be the biggest agent in London with some 106 offices in and around the capital. It also operates the Jacksons-Stops brand in London and Surrey, which it acquired earlier this year.
While the firm’s major income stream comes from lettings, it says that it is not worried by the tenant fees ban. Doble told The Telegraph: “A lot of agents have been under-charging the landlord and then loading the charges on to the tenant, and that’s always sat really uncomfortably with us.
“We think the ban is a bit OTT but it’s not a biggie for us.”
Its fortunes contrast with rival Foxtons, a quoted company, which lost £17.2m in 2018, down from £6.5m profit the year before.
Not particularly large profit margins but well done all the same.
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Certain ‘pay-anyway-so-called agents’ would give their eye teeth for a profit margin like that.
Jolly well done Dexters!
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Agreed
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Well done Dexters. Great to hear success stories of High Street agents prospering.
Staffing is paramount and great to see they are looking to retain staff and invest further.
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Just goes to show the value of good old fashioned ring rounds by competent staff. Sounds easy but recruiting people willing to pound the phones is just harder than ever.
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Well done Dexters, enjoying the more positive news PIE
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Impressive, given the current malaise within the market…
Well done chaps and chapettes!
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Amazing results in a really tough London market- bravo!
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Fair Play to them for their Profits, great result.
While the firm’s major income stream comes from lettings, it says that it is not worried by the tenant fees ban. Doble told The Telegraph: “A lot of agents have been under-charging the landlord and then loading the charges on to the tenant, and that’s always sat really uncomfortably with us.
Maybe they are on a drive to get their landlords fees up now, as they certainly were one of the cheapest Letting agents when quoting for business when I have previously worked in towns where they have been
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Well done Mr Doble. Based on the onliners method of calculating the value of their business Dexters would have a value of at least £500m!!!!!
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