A former estate agent with 20 years in the business is on the verge of launching a new venture where private sellers, buyers, landlords and tenants will be able transact.
There will be no commission – and no fees or charges of any kind. The UcaDO service will be entirely free to consumers.
At its heart is a new app which will let people upload a property within three minutes; offer geo-location services; and give tenants a credit system allowing their rent payments to be built as a credit record with Experian.
Its founder, Will Crossley-Tinney, 38, went into estate agency as a 16-year-old. His CV includes stints at Savills and Andrews, while his last job was being managing director for nearly five years at Pyne & Lyon in Exeter.
Crossley-Tinney has been working on his new business, UcaDO (a play on the words You Can Do) for 18 months.
He says he has already raised funds from friends and family, and is now in the middle of another funding round from other investors.
He has built up a team of about 12 people, based near Tunbridge Wells, and plans to launch UcaDO in the next few weeks.
Crossley-Tinney believes that there are some 250,000 people who would prefer to sell their home without any agent involved, and says the figure is higher for private landlords.
He says that a beta version of UcaDO was put out in the market as a test, and proved popular. As part of it, a trial advert appeared on Channel 4 inviting people to download the app – “There were 650,000 downloads in five minutes, so we knew the demand was there,” he says.
How will people hear about UcaDO? There will, he says, be a lot of marketing through social media; word of mouth will also be important; and there will be a big push at the student market.
It will monetise itself through advertising services such as conveyancing, but also lifestyle providers such as babysitters. The business has 53 advertising categories, and in each of 121 postcodes, three companies per category will be encouraged to advertise.
He does not rule out never charging consumers, but this would probably be for a service that they ask for but he has not yet provided.
Private sales have never been anything other than a minority part of the housing landscape and some private sales platforms failed, or reinvented themselves as agents.
As private platforms, they did not have the inventory to drive traffic, or private sellers said they needed to be on Rightmove.
Crossley-Tinney is well aware that UcaDO will have no place on Rightmove, but insists that he will be offering consumers something very different from other private sales and lettings platforms.
“The difference is that we have thought about it and researched it,” he says.
He is also adamant that he is not engaging in any kind of battle with agents.
He is aware that as an ex-agent he will be viewed as poacher turned gamekeeper – it should probably be the other way around – but insists his new business targets an entirely different sector of the market: people who want to transact without any middle person.
“There are some cracking agents around,” he says. “But we are a facilitator, not an agent.”
A point for not using the words game changer or disruptor at least. Next…
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most private landlords have very little clue about lettings, and without an agent, would be leaving them selves open to all sorts of claims and liability. How does a facilitator assist the private landlord in navigating the minefield of lettings legislation?
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Simple answer….they don’t Darrel. Another example of why we are heading in to an era of far less compliant and unsafe properties. Agents ARE the reason we have (in the majority) such a safe environment for Tenants right now. It shows what a poor job ARLA and NALS have done in getting this message across to the powers that be.
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And where does the “facilitator” stand from a legal point of view if a landlord using their service to find a tenant doesn’t comply with any of the legislation surrounding letting out their property?
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No Ca Doooont
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‘Let me tell you where I am. I wish you good luck; but I’m out.’
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Love it.
Crowdfund it… Reckon you would collect about £1m, then float it… another £30m…
Honestly there seems to be plenty of room for a business who is unlikely to ever make any profit from the actual purpose of their business but make a shed load of cash for the founder due to the short sighted cracker investors who have not figured out Crowdfunding is the alternative to when your Bank Manager, friends and family all said “they would rather stick £1m on Red Number 9”
PS – Poacher turned Gamekeeper? nah…. Agent gone crazy more like.
PPS – I actually agree with his last line, but simply be a CRACKING facilitator.
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Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. In my experience tenants & landlords / vendors & buyers do not always communicate very well with each other!
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gardenflat
Doubt the bloke will give a fuppenny as long as some money comes in…
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“Crossley-Tinney has been working on his new business, UcaDO (a play on the words You Can Do) for 18 months.”
Pity he only worked on the name for three seconds and picked one that had already been taken, so simply ‘lost’ a letter that was key to its’ meaning…
“UcaDO” (pronounced I guess “YoocarDOOO”? Or is it YewcahDOUGH”? Or another variation on the theme?) sounds like some cheap backstreet delivery service.
Ahhhh…. NOW I GET IT!
Brilliance. Pure, unadulterated chuffin’ brilliance.
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A marriage of Uber and Ocado – will my avocado toast be cold?
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They are relatives – they should not be allowed legally to marry.
And Gawd ‘elp us if there are ever children…
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Thank you, HM Government-of-the-day, for “facilitating” a year-on-year steady stream of ‘disruptors’, chancers, snake-oil salesmen and worse to flood the ranks of our industry.
Didn’t you think we had enough troubles to start with…?
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Everything has a place in life and it is refreshing to see someone being honest about their offering.
To be honest there is not really a recognised platform for the ‘DIYer’s’ so why not give it a go.
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