Countrywide Holdings, Ltd, the UK’s largest property services group, yesterday announced its financial results for the quarter ending 30 September 2012.
In terms of the groups’ conveyancing results, income in 2012 increased compared to 2011 which they attributed to the introduction of the HSBC contract.
However additional operating costs had an impact on profitability. Underlying trading, excluding HSBC, was slower in the first half of the year and was down by 6% on the corresponding period in 2011.
The completions data shows an increase of 53% whilst there was an 11% increase in instruction volumes during Q3.
Grenville Turner, Group Chief Executive of Countrywide, said that as predicted, it had been a challenging time.
He expects the 2012 market to be pretty flat with the mortgage market remaining a significant barrier to recovery. He said: “Despite difficulties predicting the exact timing of a recovery in the market, we continue to look to the future.
“Our on-going strategic priorities include consolidating our leading market share across all business areas by investing in new branches and new starts, more customer facing staff, innovative marketing, improved systems and online presence.”
Mr Turner pointed to the company’s success in this year’s Sunday Times Top Track 250 league table where the firm were ranked 21st as the only estate agency group to be included as one of Britain’s leading mid-market private companies.
A pdf copy of the Q3 2012 results can be downloaded from www.invest.countrywideplc.co.uk .
