The large regional group which last week announced that it was walking away from any online offering, has revealed its fight-back strategy.
Arun Estates, with over 100 branches in the south, yesterday launched a “hub” business model in the form of a new bricks and mortar brand, charging from £1,000 paid upfront.
Hadleys London, the first entirely new brand in Arun’s history, is in Keston, close to Croydon and covering south-east London. It is described as an office, rather than a high street branch.
With six members of staff, it will cover a wide area, including towns with Greater London postcodes but located in Surrey and Kent.
The office is headed by Danny Poulton-Midani, previously branch partner with Arun brand Cubitt & West. In overall charge is Cubitt’s regional managing director Chris Nathan.
He said: “Hadleys London harnesses advanced technology and experienced personnel to deliver the very best of both worlds – everything people would expect from a conventional high street agent, and more, but at much lower commission rates.”
Unlike the current crop of so-called hybrid agents, he said clients will be able to call for advice and support at every stage of the transaction, and even be able to arrange appointments to come in and speak to staff face to face.
Clients will also have access to Arun’s full range of marketing and other specialist support services, including mortgage and conveyancing solutions and the Group’s overflow and out-of-hours call centre.
Hadleys London has three sets of charges, starting with the one-off upfront fee of £1,000 plus VAT.
There is also a split fee option, with part paid upfront and the rest on completion.
There is also standard ‘no sale, no fee’ commission – claimed to be “substantially lower than usual high street rates” and “reflecting the efficiencies inherent in the new hub-based business model”.
Arun Group managing director David Lench, who last week said that a number of online options had been investigated but all rejected as he could not see how they would make money, said: “Arun has always prided itself on being in the vanguard of the industry.
“Neither we nor any other estate agent can confidently predict what the industry will be like in ten years, but the one thing we can be sure of is that it will be very different.
“In the light of this, we have adopted a twin-track strategy to take on the on-liners and so-called hybrids. One element of that is to establish our existing operations as premium brands, delivering superior service in return for enhanced fee levels.
“Complementing this, we see the Hadleys London model as offering the only genuinely viable way of marrying the benefits of lower commissions with traditional service levels – as well as providing the likely template for future expansion of the Group.
“In some ways this is the most significant move in Arun’s history – and a very exciting one.”
Is this article a joke? Wasn’t there another article recently about Arun Estates claiming they would never do an online style option? Don’t really see the difference to Bairstow eves appealing, I mean appaling £995 package.
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Their website even says “we’re the best online agent” so that’s clearly where they’re positioning themselves.
Given this was their plan all along, why make that statement just a few weeks ago?
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How does that work then? One minute Lench is stating something all High Street Agents already know, that there is no money or customer service in budget Agency and then goes and launches one! Maybe they could have used the office they recently shut in Horsham?
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Headline:
Agent struggling with on-line envy launches on-line Agency.
Outcome:
Looks foolish in industry press having said prior “no money in on-line Agency”
A bit odd this.
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What on-line models are doing to their people is unbelievable
To even have a chance of making the fees work the street workers (lexperts) are having to cover huge territories for little money and little credibility
They will burn and churn these people – a policy that will undoubtedly fail to build brand quality and repeat business – short termism, miisguided and not good for the consumer
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Anybody remember General Portfolio or Allied Dunbar?
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I remember them and there funds under management albeit under new names own much of the high street in towns and cities near you. Ie billions
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The future is not a billion high street offices.
Equally the future is not online only.
It’s something in between.
Personally we have taken the Hub strategy and last year sold 812 homes from a single local location.
We also made money too.
MANY agents face an existential crisis this year with a simple lack of stock and falling fees the existing business inefficient business model simply does not work.
In fact we were the highest selling branch in Wales.
Probably one of the highest selling in the Uk
The 6th highest selling brand in Wales
And we don’t have a showroom
90% of our homes are withing 20 minutes drive time.
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Totally agree……..I believe the future is to offer very high levels of personal service as efficiently as possible, and at the most reasonable cost. That is what we have have been working on for three years.
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Completely agree with this
Long standing regional agents need to consolidate their businesses
The only trouble is maintaining market share when they have pulled out of their local branch
In the other hand their high central overheads and local Office rents and rates are killing them too
A cruel dilemma for regional traditional agents – I see these guys as the casualties this year
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Paul, out of interest which agency are you (if you are happy to tell me)? We are seriously considering a change in focus for one area of our patch and introducing a hub to replace 3 offices within 15 minutes drive of each other. It would be good to see how others have done it.
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Barndoor68
Contact me on in@agentv.co.uk
We have some ideas for you, and I can probably introduce you to PaulC if he doesn’t see your post but he is happy to make contact.
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Thanks Agent V, I will drop you a line.
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So basically they are adopting Countrywides highly successful model – Well its worked amazingly well for them why not! 😉
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I suspect it will work to a degree as Arun have a staff turnover of over 50%. So it is results focused, just not staff focused. The Local Md works till 2,30 and does not have a track record of new ventures (he spent 100k or thereabouts on Horsham and then closed it).
However if it is just a way of gaining market appraisals without the associated costs of a new office then i can see a benefit.
I do chuckle when i read about a hybrid agent concept though. If you have an office then you have ongoing costs, rent, staff etc so adding new advertising and half the fees on top is nonsense. Purple bricks is the way to go. All online minimal cost, and inline with what we see happening in the retail sector with Amazon etc.
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If you can’t beat them, join them . . . and if you can’t beat them then you deserve to earn less.
Personally, I believe that the roi is better telling stories that create more value not less. Build a reputation and product that customers can see is worth more. At the end of the day selling a home is a big deal, huge. Cheap is nowhere near top of the list. Grow a pair.
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