The man behind so-called hybrid' estate agency EstatesDirect says the firm will be operating nationwide within three years and will become the leading agency of its kind in the UK.
Steve Smith, who set up cut price shop Poundland with a £50,000 loan before selling it over a decade later for £50m, has so far achieved around 75 per cent of his crowdfunding target of £1.25m which will enable EstatesDirect to spread from its current core base of the West Midlands and parts of London and Wales.
EstatesDirect operates with a website as its shop window but then has what it describes as qualified regional agents to value property, prepare details, and handle appointments, valuations and viewings - hence it claiming to be a hybrid between the online and traditional estate agency business models.
We already sell homes right across the country but if a property is outside of our core areas, we are operating as an online agency only, and that's not good enough Smith has told Estate Agent Today.
Sellers want people to talk with and experts to advise them, whether it's to hold their hands through the whole sales process or to just do occasional services like a For Sale board or an energy performance certificate he says.
EstatesDirect first launched online in some parts of the UK in 2012 and has had a series of crowdfunding campaigns to assist in their expansion. Cardiff estate agent Terrence Barrett is the latest to become one of EstatesDirect's regional experts, and Smith claims there are around 130 others waiting to operate the brand in different parts of the UK.
Smith says his firm has now spent in excess of £1m on technology, providing a platform which could support a national database of properties and significantly larger numbers of agents using it. We can put a property on the market - including photographs, floorplans and details - within 30 minutes, on our website and on the major portals he says.
New portal OnTheMarket regards EstatesDirect as an online agency and so bans it from advertising - a move which Smith describes as a bit daft.
Comments
1m on technology, what a load of tosh. You can't spend a million on a property website, maybe a stocks and shares platform but not property. Making himself look a right bullsh1tter.
Have you seen some of their staff on cards in supermarkets. But I guess if you pay peanuts or in Mr ex Pound Shops case likely a pound. Then theres always some budget newbie agent willing to do it for 99p