The boss of Britain’s fourth largest agency chain has made it clear that he will not go down the online agency route.
Ian Wilson, who heads up Martin & Co’s network of 287 franchisee-owned branches, said: “Put it this way, we are not going to be building a call centre on an industrial estate.
“My view of online agents is that they are not disruptive, the word usually bandied about.
“People have been looking for property online for years.
“All that online agents are, in reality, is low cost, and for the rest of us that could mean downward pressure on fees and the possibility of a price war.
“I am fed up with reading stories in national newspapers about online agents and how they ‘sold’ a property in six days.
“These newspapers do not even use the right terminology – ‘sold’ in the examples they use means under offer.
“It is when a property goes under offer that the hard work starts, and I was very interested in the recent story in EYE about high street agents having to do the sales progression work of online agents’ customers.
“That is a chicken that will come home to roost.”
Wilson was speaking after strong results for last year were released to the City.
Martin & Co – which is now known as the Property Franchise Group following its acquisition of the Xperience brands – reported a 38% increase in group revenue to £7.1m and a rise of 42% in operating profits to £2.9m. EBITDA (earnings after costs) rose 50% to £3.2m.
A final dividend of 4.1p per share will be paid to investors.
In the results, Martin & Co said its directors believe that it is the fourth largest estate and lettings business in the UK by number of offices, and that its plans include building market share by allowing more than one of its brands to operate in locations.
Out of its 287 offices, 32 have an annual fee income of over £500,000, and 256 now offer sales as well as lettings.
Despite that, lettings accounts for 76% of fees paid by the franchisees to head office, and last year there were over 45,000 properties under management.
During 2015, 13 new outlets opened and six were shut.
Wilson said that the firm remains highly acquisitive, with purchases in the pipeline and the industry ripe for consolidation.
Wilson, who is forecasting growth of offices to 302 by the end of this year, said he is also looking for existing agency businesses to get on board.
“We will do our research on potential new locations for us, go into a town and invite all the agents to come along to an evening event and tell them of our plans to launch.
“We will then see if any would like to convert to one of our brands, for example with the name C J Hole above their door. In return for that, we would pay them a chunk of money.”
Be it High Street or in an industrial estate located estate agencies, estate agency is still progressing and is far from where it will yet chimera to.
For sure the wrong way ahead is budget fees. It’s hard to see what a budget agen can do other than Rightmove and Zippy and to be honest those outlets are just a part of the puzzle.
Addressing consumer needs and wants can’t be done by those who choose the race to the bottom fees line.
Address WHY consumers sell and fees can be bespoke to provide a best service, rather than a budget service.
Im currently involved in trials and for sure vendors don’t mind paying more for a service that can deliver higher exposure via other agents in view of gaining a best offer that will normally outweigh a price that a budget agent using just RM or Z can gain.
The biggest value to consumes isn’t portals, but the stock handlers (agents).
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I think Ian Wilson is possibly misstating when he says on liners aren’t “disruptive” because they are. They are also giving estate agency a bad name, they offer exceptionally low customer service levels, particularly in sales progression and feedback (this is what I’ve heard from clients I’ve taken on who tried the on line option first and failed to sell).
The word “disruptive” in my mind means they are disrupting a business model built on centuries of carefully generated knowledge and skills and telling the unsuspecting public they can do the same thing for less. They can’t.
I genuinely think on line agents are in need of closer regulation and accountability.
disruptive as I always say. My **** !!!!!
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i ve put my ffes up since purpleshits started. people seem to know that 895 upfront is a rip off and are happy to pay me on results…not **** adverts.
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fees not ffes……edit button be nice .
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Apparently, a company has been set up to take down a monopoly..yeah they are going to support it,,and try making its only competitor go bust…once they do this they will go after the monopoly who will hav become twice as strong by then….april fool lol,,no i mean onthemarket’s business plan with dopoey agents supporting it.
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First of all – have you posted this in the correct place? It is out of context in terms of thread subject matter.
Secondly – have you posted this in the correct language? It’s out of this world in terms of typos and grammatical ****-ups.
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I just LOVE how the smutfilter decides which words to censor… not.
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