Simon Agace celebrates 50 years at the helm of Winkworth – how has London changed?

A serious housing shortage, rental homes in a bad state of disrepair, strikes blighting the capital and high interest rates. This may sound familiar, but it was, in fact, 1974 and the year Simon Agace took over Winkworth estate agents.

As he notches up his 50th anniversary with the company this year, Winkworth Chairman Simon Agace has a warning for the new Labour Government: “Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.”

In 1974, Simon Agace saw an opportunity and took over Winkworth from Mann & Co, establishing the firm as local village offices in central London, extending from the Winkworth base in Mayfair to Knightsbridge, Fulham, Kensington and Battersea, Notting Hill, St John’s Wood and Putney. Having increased the network to eight offices by 1980, he decided franchising was the way forward, using his experience working in America, he created the first franchised estate agency in the UK in 1981. Today, Winkworth has a network of more than 100 offices nationwide, including more than 60 in London.

On the latest episode of Winkworth’s Property Exchange podcast, Simon joins his son, Winkworth Chief Executive Dominic Agace, and recalls London in 1974 where you could buy a house in Knightsbridge for £36,000 and the average house price was just under £10,000. Simon told the podcast: “This was rental London. Most of the blocks of flats in the capital were owned by institutional landlords. There were rent controls and low rents didn’t cover the management of the building so no repairs were done. It was a mess.

“London was pretty grim then, with blackened, decaying buildings as there were no smoke controls. It was a very different place. Two things happened. Entrepreneurs realised there was an opportunity and bought up these dilapidated buildings cheaply, sometimes at 45 per cent of value, from institutions who were facing reputational damage and corporates who were under pressure from banks to sell up. The new buyers modernized the buildings, cleaned them and tidied up the common parts and then offered them to tenants to buy their flats, often with up to 30% discount. Then we had the 1988 Housing Act, which produced assured shorthold tenancies. Suddenly you had two classes of rental property. One where you can negotiate open market rents which made it appealing to investors, and the others still fixed by rent control which have slowly disappeared over the years. There are still people living in low rent-controlled flats in central London.”

Simon Agace was at the heart of the transformation of prime central London into a city with global appeal - a capital of culture, with stunning architecture, smart restaurants, and high-end retail.

He told the podcast: “The second change was influx of international money because of the oil crisis and the change of wealth across the world. We had Iranians, Malaysians, and people from Bahrain, South Africa, and Hong Kong. These people came and looked at London, and it wasn't quite up to their standard, so they bought properties and tore them apart.

“London became the family office centre of the world and the centre of the business world. If you had a business in Bahrain or Abu Dhabi, or wherever, you also had a family office in London. Wealthy Indian families wanted to have a big family house in Mayfair, as they would have had when they’re at home in India. They would also establish a head office in London.”

Simon has a warning for the Government and its current stance to drive non-doms out of the UK with punitive taxes.

He told the podcast: It's very dangerous to suddenly turn around to people and say, ‘Oh, you've got your office in London for the world but now you can't do it. We’re going to tax you out. So terrifying.”

Left to right: commentator and broadcaster Anne Ashworth, Winkworth Chief Executive Dominic Agace and Winkworth Chairman Simon Agace.