Election hammers Countrywide’s profits

Countrywide, officially the UK's biggest estate agency and owner of brands like Hamptons International and John D Wood, has turned in a record set of results but warned of "sluggishness in market trends"…

Britain's biggest estate agency Countrywide has reported an "encouraging" Q4, despite the general slowdown in transaction volumes and uncertainty around buy-to-let stamp duty and mortgage interest relief.

Countrywide has reported an 11% yearly fall in pre-tax profits in the nine months to September, after the anticipated post-election recovery in transaction volumes "failed to materialise in any significant…