Foxtons made a sale every 45 minutes and a rental deal every 21 minutes last year.

Today, it affirmed that its strategy is based on visibility in the high street.

This morning, in what reads like a riposte to the online estate agency model, Foxtons reported its results for 2015 to the City.

It was helped by a strong performance in the second half of the year.

Of a total revenue of £149.8m, £78.7m was brought in during the second half of the year, with earnings after costs (EBITDA) standing at a total of £46m.

It finished the year with 58 branches – seven more than in 2014.

Sales revenue was £72.2m, lettings revenue £68.9m and mortgage revenue £8.3m. All the figures were up on the previous year. However, pre-tax profits dipped by 2.6%, to £41m, on the back of increased costs – running costs per branch were up 9%, HQ costs were up 2%, admin costs up 11%, and salaries up 5%.

Average commission on a sale was £12,990 and average revenue on a let was £3,357.

Foxtons’ performance came despite the fact that London sales volumes fell almost 10% last year, and remain currently below 30% their long-term average.

Sales volumes in Zones 1 and 2 have fallen the most sharply since 2013, at 21.4% and 14.9% respectively.

However, said CEO Nic Budden, Foxtons increased its own sales volumes by 4.4%, driven by solid performance across the branches; continued focus on delivering exceptional customer services; and new branches performing well and increasing market share.

He said that Foxtons’ sales market share in London has doubled since 2008.

On the lettings side, Budden said that over 1m London households now live in the private rental sector.

While new lets were slightly down last year, there were more renewals: Foxtons reported a tenant renewal rate in the last quarter of last year at over 90%.

Budden said there is potential for Foxtons, which now has 62 branches, all café-style, to have over 100 branches in London.

It also has a fleet of over 1,000 cars.

Foxtons said that “aggregator presence and local high street branch presence are among the top three reasons” vendors choose an estate agent.

It also continually mines its proprietary database of 3.7m records, resulting in low advertising costs: it spends only on print, with no TV or radio spend.

As a result, it says, customer acquisition costs are kept low, with marketing costs reduced from 7% of revenue between 2005 to 2007 to just 2% last year.