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Hunts Estate Agents set for third decade

Hunts Estate Agents Move Into Third Decade 

One of Huntingdonshire's leading estate agencies has survived a second profound recession to celebrate 20 years in the district's High Streets.

Peter Lane founded his eponymous company in January 1989 - just as Chancellor Nigel Lawson plunged the housing market and much of the rest of the economy into what was at the time one of the deepest recessions in decades.

But Peter Lane and Partners prospered in Huntingdon in spite of some difficult moments, later expanding into St Ives, Kimbolton and, briefly, east Northamptonshire.

"People were taking mortgages at 18 per cent when we first started," Mr Lane recalls. With the minimum lending rate peaking at 14 per cent in 1989, "they thought nothing of it".

Compare that with the most recent downturn in the economy and housing market, which has seen many of the same people paying less than one per cent interest on what is left of their home loans.

Mr Lane, who is now 63 and has been in the business 40 years, had worked for many years with agents Ekins, Dilley and Handley, whose headquarters were in St Mary's Street, Huntingdon. The company was bought out by Prudential at a time when it was fashionable for insurance companies to use their own estate agencies to sell customers endowment mortgages and household insurance.

The late 1980s recession saw that trend off, and Mr Lane, who had been a Pru director, invested his redundancy cash and a lot of time to set up his own business in a tiny former fashion shop towards the bottom of Huntingdon High Street, with the help of his wife and Roger Stoneman, who still manages the Huntingdon business.

Over a period of years the company has moved sideways, now occupying what used to be four adjacent shops.

Peter Lane's first sale - a house in Alconbury - was celebrated by giving away a holiday to the vendor when contracts were exchanged.

"Everyone said the bubble would burst, and it did. But we were selling houses and there were plenty available. We also had the experience, and I'd been through previous recessions," Mr Lane told The Hunts Post. "And then there was no such thing as a buy-to-let mortgage.

"This time, we've had the busiest Christmas for four or five years, when it usually dies down in mid-December.

"It's going to be an interesting year for the market. The last quarter was good, but the hardest thing at the moment is that there has been a shortage of property. People can't find what they are looking for, so they are not trying to sell. But we shall probably look back in six months' time and wonder what we were worrying about. There's pent-up demand out there.

"The only thing that's stopping the market taking off is the shortage of mortgages for some people, particularly first-time buyers. But investors have come back onto the scene, and they will make a killing on the bargains they have been able to pick up."

To help ease the logjam that has resulted from a reduction in speculative marketing of properties, Peter Lane is funding clients' home information packs in the expectation that lenders' confidence in the recovering market will encourage greater flexibility.

But one thing that continues to make Mr Lane smile is the confounding of the doom-merchants who said the internet would kill the business.

"Ten years ago they told me there would be no estate agents by now, but the basis of selling a house is exactly the same as 40 years ago. I don't know what we would do without the website, but people still want service from an agent they can trust.

Disclaimer
These particulars are intended only as general guidance. The Company therefore gives notice that none of the material issued or visual depictions of any kind made on behalf of the Company can be relied upon as accurately describing any of the Specified Matters prescribed by any Order made under the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991. Nor do they constitute a contract, part of a contract or a warranty.

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