Grenville Folwell, chairman of the Group, said: “While the market has shown continued growth since the beginning of the year, signs are beginning to emerge that the three base rate increases since last August are leading to some deceleration in the rate of house price growth.
“Nevertheless, it is the volume of housing transactions rather than the house prices which is the main driver for our business and we believe that the outlook for the rest of the year is favourable.
“Network Surveyors Limited (NSL) continues to grow. The number of surveys carried out in the first quarter of 2007 is 140% higher than the first quarter in 2006. From 1 June 2007, NSL’s main attention will be on its Home Information Pack related work, involving instructions to home inspectors and energy assessors to visit residential properties.
“On 29 March, the final Home Information Pack (HIP) regulations were put before parliament and on 19th April they officially came into force. Therefore, despite the negative press and the rather belated opposition to HIPs from the Conservative party, HIPs are going to be a mandatory part of the home buying process from 1 June 2007. Hipstar Limited is positioned to be a major provider of HIPs.
“We are progressing the development of Homeowners Mortgages Limited (HOM) which will be an originator of mortgages with a whole of market proposition, covering both the prime and sub-prime sectors. We believe the well-publicised troubles in the US sub-prime mortgage sector are, for technical reasons related to early payment defaults, unique to the US market and are unlikely to be replicated in the UK. Last month we appointed Mark Chilton as chief executive of HOM. Mark joins us from Purely Mortgages, a broker firm, having previously been the head of Savills Private Finance and earlier in his career sales and marketing director of a mortgage lender, First Mortgage Securities. We anticipate that HOM will be launched in September having received full FSA authorisation in the summer.
“Over the past 12 months employee numbers have grown from 149 to 176 and are expected to exceed 200 by the summer. We have consequently taken on 8,500sqft of leasehold premises in Chertsey, a few minutes drive from our head office. The new premises will house the NSL, Hipstar and HOM staff.
“We believe that the Group is well positioned to take advantage of the opportunities in the market and we look forward to the rest of the year with confidence.”
