Acquisitive LSL pays just under £1m to buy rival

York-based LSL is buying the estate agency, land and new home and lettings business of Goodfellows Group for 963,968 in cash.

Goodfellows has nine estate agency and lettings offices in South London and specialises in land and new homes.

The acquisition follows the purchase of Home of Choice for 1.5m earlier this month and LSL is expected to announce more bolt-on acquisitions over the coming months.

Home of Choice, which was bought from the administrators, is a specialist mortgage network provider to about 500 self-employed mortgage advisers.

Last month, LSL confounded a recent glut of bad news from the mortgage sector by reporting continued improvement in trading.

The group told shareholders at its annual meeting that "activity levels remain encouraging" and a pick-up seen late last year – when it was buoyed by stronger-than-anticipated house sales – had continued in the first three months of the year.

In January, LSL sealed the acquisition of more than 200 estate agency branches from Halifax for a token 1.

LSL expects the Halifax business to generate profits in 2011. It will spend this year focusing on improving branch income. It now has 575 branches, including 40 in Yorkshire.