Savills Share Discussion Threads

[dasv] 12/6/2007 12:04

High volumes of selling today on SVS. I assume it's negative news on the property market and figures from HBOS released today that number of mortgages taken out has dropped. My psychological stop was at 600 but can't bring myself to sell. What an amateur I am.

[darias] 08/6/2007 07:10

wasn't luck!

Discussion on a golf course with one of our members confirmed by various RNS's.

[shaken] 01/6/2007 14:43

Savilles? only way is UP .... but DTZ will be upper UPPER closer to results......

[dasv] 01/6/2007 12:51

Darias - lucky to get avg of 67 - I bought in this morning after researching- stock held tight max trade on selftrade 1500 shares. Already in profit. Thanks for tip.

[dasv] 01/6/2007 07:38

cheers. will research Redstone. I too have steered away from larger caps. Sold out of Reckitt and Rio recently and took profit on Autonomy last week. Also like the look of Antisoma though will require patience.

[darias] 31/5/2007 12:47

Try Redstone.

We have an average price of around 67p - bought in two tranches. Last trance in January.

They have climbed a bit lately but can still go to £1:50 or above before we start looking to get out.

[darias] 31/5/2007 12:44

Mid Caps? Actually none. Savills was low cap when I first bought and I am still fishing amongst the low caps before they get to be mid caps.

[dasv] 29/5/2007 21:35

actually darias, I don't see many mid to large caps with good growth and low valuations. What have you got your eye on?

[darias] 25/5/2007 09:48

It is slowly getting to the stage where I may be interested on getting on board.

I am looking for sub £6. If it doesn't reach it there are plenty of other shares out there.

[dasv] 18/5/2007 13:14

hi mike24 - appreciate what you are saying. I agree the present situation is unsustainable.

Greenspan and BofE have both increased the money supply. in the late 90's this led to enormous amounts of venture capital being available for dubious dot com ventures. Following the tech stock collapse the increased money supply (very lax lending conditions) led to another asset bubble, this time in property. "You can't go wrong with bricks and mortar" people used to say.

If you check out the ABN Amro report I posted above, you will note that the Japanese and German property markets have not experienced the same property bubble as the US or the UK (I can't comment on NZ - no experience of that market - though Peter Schiff has been steering his europac.net clients into NX commercial property funds for years. I wonder if he's stopped already).

The politicians will try and soften the blow of house price reduction somehow, but I fear it might be too big for them to control.

Increased house prices are beneficial to the politicians because they (strangely) increase consumer confidence which leads to more purchasing.

Don't know if you know this but Gross Domestic Product as a statistic INCLUDES consumption and imports. If the US increases it's consumption of Chinese goods then the US's GDP goes up. As Schiff points out, the Exxon valdez disaster and hurricane katrina both increased the GDP of the US- the cost of the clean up resulted in more purchasing and more importing.

Anyway - this is why a booming property market is a short term fix to boost the economy (on the basis of stats only) for politicians. Of course it has a very negative effect long term on the economy, as people perceiving themselves to be rich because their flats cost £300k think they can buy everything on credit because next year their flat will be worth £350k. In fact their ability to upgrade to a more expensive home has been reduced. Their purchasing power has gone down. They would be richer if house prices went down: a price reduction would increase their purchasing power and allow them to buy a bigger and better house cheaper.

Of course this is nonsense but the massive sales of the Daily Mail proves that people actually believe this fallacy.

The only people that benefit from a price increase are the property speculators - the landlords and agents, not the owner occupiers.

I too am concerned what effect a massive drop in consumer confidence would do to the UK economy. At the least we'd have a mild recession. At the worst the Pound might devalue massively against the Euro - along with house prices dropping.

One of the first things Gordon Brown did was to sell off the UK gold reserves in an auction right at the bottom price for Gold. so the pound will not be propped up with Gold.

I agree it's a bad state of affairs. There's a lot to be said for bailing out and going into a hard currency fund. I have moved into natural resource funds and gold. Also will be buying dividend buying utilities in near future. The bull run could well be over soon.

I seriously believe that I'd be better off selling my house now and renting for 2 years. It's just the hassle factor that is putting me off.

[mike24] 18/5/2007 12:25

dasv there are 700 staff working for pwc in auckland six yrs
ago I found city centre flat for 40k, asked several empoyees
should I buy, no wait wait wait they will become cheaper, I never bought,
the point being highly qualified staff could not see a zero downside to this price'
calling the top would therefore be even more difficult
the wealth coming into NZ 02 onwards mainly from US has made the country
"uneconomically viable" last wk/end auckland papers.........
headed AFTER THE GOLDRUSH how to survive prop slump, as rates top 10%

it makes me nervous, most of them exspect prop to continue rising,they're
convinced the sky's the limit,

talking to older colleagues, we're all sitting here, hands in pockets
building up vulture funds,

its okay saying enormous wealth is being drawn into london, the 1%
owning 25% of the nation's wealth,but they cannot sustain the other 99% but they create, inflationery pressures
all the way down to the guy trying to run a small business, mac my neighbour subcon,
for conoco his public liability has gone from 8k to 24k in one yr,he just closed the business down, that is happening all over the country, but the BOE are still trying to cool market with rate rises, which are crippling the economy, basically trying to contain london market, until the banks reign in lending, the bubble will keep growing with ever more serious consequences,
land securities call an end to comm prop market, "er thats a no brainer"
we wil have AT LEAST ten yrs of negative growth, or even retracement in this sector,
thats not to say co's like WKP will still do well, as they are sitting on a portfolio bought at the right price and will ad accordingly,I don't doubt svs is possibly going
through its most profitable period at present ,but the future is very uncertain, wonder why ubs boss retired last summer (mid forties) & moved to tasmania

dasv put the oil shares onyer watch list, wish i had funds for cne

[dasv] 18/5/2007 08:11

mike24 - thanks for (edit) reply.

I am well aware of the risks facing the UK housing market, and am also well aware of the subprime lending problem in the US. There's a good overview of the reasons for the real estate bubble in Peter Schiff's Crash-proof. I also think that the UK faces a housing crash because people have over-borrowed to buy over-priced homes in the sub-500k bracket with massive 5-6x salary mortgages.

What I am saying is that Savills operates in a different sphere.

1. residential property is only one aspect of what they do
2. Luxury property is not bought with loans. People buy in cash. 25% of buyers of Savills Luxury residential property last year in London were Russians.
3. I predict London and the South East will fare better than outlying areas. There is still demand in London. Docklands' fortunes are tied to the square mile. So if there is a stock market downturn we will see a downturn in general in property.

When the RNS's from Savills start to be in the slightest bit doubtful then I will dump stock. Right now, the fundamentalist in me sees them as still a good play even taking on board the over-valuation of UK property.

I totally agree that there property rental in the UK is not worth it. Yields are too low. I cannot understand the amateur property investor's obsession with buy-to-let. 20-30% of mortgages taken out are buy to let - and they also feature worse interest rates and larger set up fees coupled with bad yields.

The fact that yields have not kept pace with property prices recently indicates a bubble has formed.

The ABN Amro report is also worth reading.



SVS has exposure to asian emerging market, Korea, HK and China, commercial property which I believe is the growth end of their activities.

Don't write SVS off yet. Not saying you should bet your life savings on them, but feel they deserve a place on one's watchlist.

[dasv] 17/5/2007 12:52

sp down post div today

[dasv] 16/5/2007 21:36

mike24 - how exposed is savills to marbella and san fran? The beauty of the company as a property play is its exposure only to prime residential and prime commercial property.

I believe in the fragility of the UK property bubble and also am well versed in how rotten-to-the-core the US real estate market has become, but fail to see relevance to SVS share price Enlighten me.

[mike24] 10/5/2007 09:01

blogs 15/5
us the prop, downturn will go through 2 big waves lasting till 2013

san fran, 40% of loans were interest only (blame greenspan)
families are using debt to pay bills,
wall st is hiding the ugly facts from us

spanish press, 6/11/03 one hundred building sites suspended
around marbella, due too false permits, corruption, etc
now the spanish banks taking a hit, are flogging off assetts

edit, dasv these are popular property destinations taking a serious hit,
can you honestly tell me london is not seriously overpriced, tis almost
identical situation to summer of 87 dockland prices going up 10% a month
my GUESS is in central london props will fall back a six fig sum, when is ?
a have sold out of commercial small ind units, one retail retained not only
are yields falling, but retail is being hit hard (4yrs in hof's advertising dept) contacts still keep me well informed
this is not a deramp just commonsense,posted svs as good buy on barc
thread 3yrs ago, reading john r. talbott books will save you a lot of dosh

[darias] 10/5/2007 07:13

Those highs long gone eh Phillis.

AGM yesterday with lots of resolutions about shares - buying and disposing etc. Now why do you think that was?

And price falling following an AGM - very unusual for a company so well thought off in the City.

I do hope that you weren't sucked into buying too many. There will come a time to buy, of that I have no doubt, but I would rather buy at the price the "bookbuilders" bought at then the price that is being offered now.

Or prefer to wait until an "institutional" investor announces that they have acquired a substantial stake in the company.

[phillis] 03/5/2007 21:28

..and with an overhang too....!

Another Kit Kat please

[dasv] 03/5/2007 12:08

OK take a break. You are not exactly a constructive contributor anyway.

For your return:-...

If you disagree, please give your grounds. If the MM's didn't buy the shares, someone else did. Who?

Savills now broken through psychological 700p barrier.

[phillis] 03/5/2007 09:50

So why did he think the bookrunners were the buyers?
Give me a break!

[dasv] 03/5/2007 08:19

Regardless of the overhang, there continues to be high volumes of trading on SVS and it seems the trading range has broken with the current share price being 696.

I am happy to say that I didn't sell my holding - though I was going to, just didn't seem to get round to it. I think I will continue to hold until results now.

(Darias I think the solid fundamentals and growing EPS of Savills mean we cannot say that the "bubble will have to burst". Perhaps the housing/property bubble will burst, but the SVS share price is not overvalued for a company which continues to grow revenues and make profits so consistently.)

(Phillis, you may disagree with Darias, but he is no fool, and I don't think you have understood his position yet. Let's try and keep the standard and tone of debate on this thread of a substantially higher quality than the rest of advfn.)

[darias] 02/5/2007 18:21

"Placed in the market"

exactly!

[phillis] 02/5/2007 14:35

You fool -they are the brokers who manage the sale process.
They are the agents!

Even Saville's own results staement says the shares were "placed in the market"

[darias] 02/5/2007 14:30

So Why have not Credit Suise et al announced their holdings as you have named 3 companies which means 6% each.

Notwithstanding that they bought the shares to trade.

"book" is defined as a "A banker or trader's position".

This is my last post on the subject as I am fed up discussing this with the brain dead.

Just look at all those AT shares. This is computers deciding to sell/buy on certain price levels.

[phillis] 02/5/2007 13:56

Dear oh dear!

CB sold their shares for 623p
Credit Suise , Hoare Govett and Morgan Stanley placed the shares via a bog standard bookbuilding process - simple as that