Charlie Lamdin, founder of property platform BestAgent, is launching a membership scheme for estate agents, with subscriptions starting at £100 a month.
BestAgent Club launches in November, initially offering 99 founder memberships. The company will cap total membership at 1,000 agents.
The scheme will assess applicants against criteria covering working practices, service standards and transaction performance. BestAgent may withdraw membership if agents fail to maintain the required standards.
Individual membership will cost £100 per month, while business membership starts at £250 per month.
The scheme will offer training and coaching, with the aim of helping agents achieve transaction completion rates of at least 90% and charge fees of 2% or more.
Business members will also qualify for discounted leads.
Revenue-sharing scheme
Qualifying business members could receive a share of BestAgent’s revenues if they meet performance benchmarks.
Under the proposed arrangement, selected members would receive what the company calls an investment chip. Each chip would entitle its holder to 0.01% of BestAgent’s revenues over ten years.
BestAgent estimates that each chip could generate up to £100,000 during that period. However, the company does not guarantee returns and has not disclosed the revenue projections behind the estimate.
Performance benchmarks
The club plans to introduce benchmarks based on transaction completion rates and the time agents take to complete sales.
Lamdin said agents must meet the club’s criteria rather than simply pay a membership fee.
“This isn’t a Club that agents can simply pay to join.”
However, BestAgent has yet to publish its detailed performance criteria or explain how it intends to assess compliance independently.
The company’s advisory board includes Daniel Daggers, founder of DDRE Global; Verona Frankish, chief executive of Yopa; and Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK.
Sutherland questioned how the industry measures success.
“One of the strangest things about the property market is that we reward people for starting transactions, rather than successfully finishing them.”
The club will launch next month.
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Comments (12)
If I’m not mistaken , he has never said a good word about estate agents but I will gladly pay him £100………to keep his mouth shut !
Oh my goodness, what a joker I bet his account is overflowing with applicants NOT! Best Agents Club Ha Ha Ha.
ha ha ha ha another nobody trying to tell proper estate agents what they need to do, what a joker
Some of the comments here highlight the problem the industry faces. Focusing on personal feelings rather than the problem at hand.
Good agents aren’t paid enough. Anyone disagree?
Shorter deal times, the focus of the club, and the metric that earns members recognition and participation in the company’s revenues, benefits everyone, no exceptions. Anyone disagree?
The gap between asking prices and sale prices slows deals and cashflows, and when it narrows, everyone benefits. Anyone disagree?
The agents around the country who are already on the waiting list see the value in this.
We’re inviting agents who care about their customers, want to improve professionally, and have what it takes to kick old habits holding the industry back. That narrows the field considerably.
The agents joining BestAgent Club are the ones leading the change everyone wants to see and I applaud them.
And yes, I want to get paid if I add value. More agents need to think that way. The BestAgent process includes terms that result in agents never being left out of pocket. The Club exists to champion those agent who deliver better than most.
The rest will always feel threatened by that, rightly I suppose.
If you’re quietly reading this and agreeing with me, I hope to see you on the Club waiting list.
Great agents move people’s lives forward. We’ll make them easier for the public to find.
To those who can’t see the benefit here. I wish you all the best in a market that’s not getting easier any time soon.
You are not an agent
You applaud only agents who want to pay you money
All others you imply dop not care about customers
Where is the EVIDENCE that agents who join you “deliver better than most”
The website is incredibly bland
Again, you’re making it about me rather than the problem. Do you disagree with any of our objectives or the problem our member agents want to solve?
Agree with other posts/comments here. Charlie Lamdin (who used to be named Charlie Wright, but don’t know why he changed it) is a click-bait king – always scaremongering to get clicks on his articles but talking down the market and talking down agents.
How can he have the front to be the house buying publics friend on one hand by talking agents down, and then on the other hand be asking agents to give him money for some ‘club’ that hasn’t got off the ground in years, and pretending to be the agents friend!?
What a cheek!
What a joker!
And don’t get me started on his property price fall predictions that simply never materialised!
I only talk down bad agency. I equally talk up good agency. Don’t we all want less of that? Fewer long sole agency contracts clogging the market with unsellable homes? If you can get past personal feelings, which part of what we’re proposing do you disagree with?
You are NOT AN AGENT
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You’re easily amused and very perceptive. That’s right, I help agents make more money. Which part of that don’t you like?
I’ve read this twice and I’m still struggling with it.
Charlie told the public that 2022 would be the peak and house prices would fall 35% by 2025. The market has softened a little this year, but prices are nowhere near 35% down. In fact, the average home hit a record high earlier this year.
He ran a survey through his YouTube channel that led to headlines saying nearly half of buyers felt deliberately misled by agents. Agents said at the time the questions were leading. This year he’s been putting out videos on “the end of bad estate agency” and telling sellers how to pick which agents not to use.
Now he wants those same agents to pay £100 a month, or £250 for a business, to join his club. We’re told members could earn up to £100,000, but there’s no guarantee and no figures to show how that’s been worked out. And a BestAgent Club at £100 a month was already on his website back in 2024, so I’m not sure what’s new.
He says it isn’t a club you can simply pay to join. From where I’m sitting, the payment is the only part that’s guaranteed.
Most agents I know have spent the last few years doing the hard yards in a tough market, holding chains together and looking after their teams. They deserve people who back them, not people who talk them down to the public and then send them a monthly bill.
Before anyone signs up, look back at what’s been said about agents and the market. Then decide if that’s who you want to pay.
Agree
His predictions were ridiculous
He slates agents and then expects them to respect him and give him money
Joker