Montagu Evans is the latest commercial property practice to set up a residential sales division.
The company best known for its large planning department has taken on Mungo Tennant as a full-time consultant to hand pick two teams of residential sales agents.
Tennant is a former director of Taylor Woodrow Capital Developments.
Montagu plans to use its status as a specialist planning firm to cash in on the lucrative new homes market.
It has recruited Neil Batty from Savills to head its presales team, which will concentrate on selling off-plan apartments to investors.
Tim Crowthorne has also moved from Savills to assist.
The company is in talks with a further three people to sell completed homes on development sites and will also take on another residential investment agent.
Montagu which employs 250 staff, of which 140 are based in London hopes to have built up a team of 12 by the end of the year, with a targeted turnover of £2m.
According to the company’s business plan, in two years it wants to have 20 people in the division and £4m-£5m turnover.
Managing partner Clive Riding said: “There is a big crossover between planning, valuations and residential sales.
“When you look at the size of the schemes that we are instructed on, we have the potential to be instructed on 10,000 units in two years’ time.
“For a long time we’ve valued mixed-use developments, both for developers and for the banks.
“Often we have been asked by developers to interview sales agents for new developments, and we felt that we be able to offer a better service to our clients if we could achieve the prices we were quoting for them ourselves,” he added.
References: EGi News 05/06/06
