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Ben Hollis

Director

3584 Profile Views

About Me

20 years in the property industry. Architectural consultant. Real estate development consultant for one of the world’s largest estate agency companies. Started own agency in 2011. Sales & Lettings. 300+% growth in past 4 years. Loving it.

my expertise in the industry

20 years in the property industry. Architectural consultant. Real estate development consultant for one of the world’s largest estate agency companies. Started own agency in 2011. Sales & Lettings. 300+% growth in past 4 years. Loving it.

Ben's Recent Activity

I feel for them, never like to see anyone struggle. Best of luck in whatever they do next. It’s not other agents or vendors fault. We all have always had over valuing and under charging agents around us. It’s a good agents job to educate vendors (price) and demonstrate their value (fee) - if I can’t do that, I’m failing.

From: Ben Hollis 06 June 2023 06:44 AM

I feel for them, never like to see anyone struggle. Best of luck in whatever they do next. It’s not other agents or vendors fault. We all have always had over valuing and under charging agents around us. It’s a good agents job to educate vendors (price) and demonstrate their value (fee) - if I can’t do that, I’m failing.

From: Ben Hollis 06 June 2023 06:44 AM

It’s not ‘coming’ it has been here for a while. What we’ve been feeling recently is overflow demand, not surge. The Land Reg data is always 3+months out of date. See all the recent price reductions? The market isn’t dropping, it just slowed down a while a ago.

From: Ben Hollis 21 July 2022 06:33 AM

Works for us. We’ve recently started doing 60 Second Tours of all our new properties on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. It’s creating a real following. Won’t be long until others copy that and follow suit, love it. TikTok: @Lancasters Instagram@LancastersEstateAgents

From: Ben Hollis 05 July 2022 06:58 AM

When we enquired about transitioning from one Zoopla brand software to another (ExpertAgent to Alto) they were unable to tell us what data would be lost or need manual input. They sent us lists of data that would move, but not able to tell us what wouldn't - which is the critical information for an agent to be able to assess the loss and disturbance. They said they would come back to me when they knew. That was over 2 years ago, nothing yet. If anyone at the group is reading this and actually knows the answer, I’m still here - Ben@Lancasters.org

From: Ben Hollis 08 June 2022 07:27 AM

I can’t see the flyer/info, am I being blind?

From: Ben Hollis 24 March 2022 07:05 AM

Max Boyne - I believe you are confusing ‘opinion’ with ‘prejudice’. If you believe being prejudice is acceptable I most certainly was not referring to you when saying ‘we’ are better than that. Equality is a pursuit, just because a society isn’t there yet (or may never be) doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for it.

From: Ben Hollis 29 January 2022 08:18 AM

I think PB did the right thing (for once). Take a step back, if owners were prejudice to any other group we would (should) act the same: race, religion, gender, sexuality. If we believe in equality we have to put our money where our mouth is and walk away from those people. No one can force the vendors to sell to gay buyers, in the same way as no one could force 1960’s shop owners to serve black people if they didn’t want to, but that’s not the point is it. Laws are always retrospective. You won’t find your moral compass in a law book.

From: Ben Hollis 28 January 2022 08:30 AM

@Paul Robertson You’re only viewing business from the business’ point of view, not the customers. Why should a client hire you? Are you better than other cheaper agencies? Demonstrate it. You’re either failing to perform, or failing to demonstrate your value. For example, if clients ever mention fee (which they rarely do if we’ve done our prep properly) we charge 1.8%, no exceptions. Most others locally charge less. We collect the data on the other agent’s performance (asking vs achieved prices) and can evidence we achieve on average 3.3% more. So the other agents could be FREE and you’d still be better off by 1.5%. In the last three years (since getting my head around that) we’ve never lost an instruction on fee. So ‘cheap’ is not competition.

From: Ben Hollis 25 November 2021 21:39 PM

My sympathies to the individuals suffering. However from a business perspective, take some responsibility and don’t blame others for your own failures. Did the agency fail to deliver true value to their clients, or did they fail to demonstrate that value?

From: Ben Hollis 25 November 2021 07:45 AM

Another case of a ‘survey’ designed to result in a pre-determined outcome? A survey by a company that can’t provide interactive WhatsApp, so framed the question in such a way that it grouped the answer in with ‘transmit only’ SMS which is a very different proposition. I can see how this would make their in-house team more comfortable about no development in this area, like the blockbuster surveys which told them customers weren’t interested in online movies.

From: Ben Hollis 27 May 2021 07:08 AM

Why would any agent not support this? If you’ve completed the survey referenced it only discusses basic information that has a material affect on property value, so any agent worth their salt would have gathered this information anyway or they would take have been able to accurately establish marketing price at the start. And displaying this to buyers saves wasted time with buyers who are it comfortable with those answers. There was nothing implied in the survey that we haven’t done as standard for years.

From: Ben Hollis 21 April 2021 07:01 AM

Why? Is their goal to fill their day or sell the property? Sounds like poor buyer qualification. You can only sell it once. We average 6 viewings per sale. I’d rather sell three different properties in that time.

From: Ben Hollis 30 March 2021 06:23 AM

This isn’t news, did no one see Jerry Maguire 24 years ago? It’s the same in any industry, good people/businesses evolve and strive, average ones struggle, poor ones die.

From: Ben Hollis 20 October 2020 08:16 AM

Are you sure about that...? Our agency has over 23,000 Facebook likes/followers @LancastersEA A correction and being entered into your league table would be appreciated.

From: Ben Hollis 28 July 2020 07:27 AM

Countrywide (trading as Watson Bull & Porter locally) were still doing face to face viewings with clients, suited and booted, on 26th March. Craziness.

From: Ben Hollis 03 April 2020 07:47 AM

The drop in GBP has not been considered. A decade ago GBP to USD was 2.0:1.0 now it’s 1.3:1.0, that would make the UK £30,000 to £35,000 adjusted for exchange rate changes.

From: Ben Hollis 14 January 2020 07:30 AM

I didn’t have the time to research the whole of the uk, but based in RightmovePlus and ZooplaPro data for Hampshire the original 48% claim seems accurate.

From: Ben Hollis 27 June 2019 08:05 AM

Countrywide have closed 3 of their remaining 5 ‘Watson Bull & Porter’ branded branches. Happened last week. 5 years ago there were 9, now only 2, and they look uncertain. Such a shame for the staff - they were failed from the top down.

From: Ben Hollis 31 May 2019 08:03 AM

Purplebricks are the worst offenders of over valuing to gain the instruction, as they get paid regardless of whether it actually sells or not. Rightmove stats evidence this.

From: Ben Hollis 09 April 2019 07:42 AM

These seem to have been derived simply by comparing available vs sstc on Rightmove. Some agencies remove property from portals on exchange of contracts (we do), some on completion, and many leave them there for the full 6 months until they are automatically removed by Rightmove. If that is the basis of their data this massively inaccurate and misleading, and I feel you have a responsibility to make this clear.

From: Ben Hollis 15 November 2018 08:19 AM

Agreed. I like EAToday but it is starting to feel like a PB blog. Happy to hear newsworthy stories.

From: Ben Hollis 10 August 2018 08:46 AM

Andrew Hill - I agree with your sentiment, but there does need to be balance. For example we had a case a couple of years ago where we showed a lady round a property and she was “considering making an offer”, but never did as on the third viewing she recognised the owner from a photograph in the wall. She then went quiet and two days later we received notice to quit from the vendor. Small town grapevine suggested she had approached him privately to save agent fees and get a better deal. 6 months later we did a land reg check and she had bought it. We certainly introduced the buyer (more than once) but didn’t receive a formal offer. Should all of our marketing, viewings and negotiations with the eventual buyer been for nothing? We did not pursue it because of the grey area surrounding such cases, but felt we should have been entitled to something. Peoples thoughts?

From: Ben Hollis 27 July 2018 13:44 PM

Sam, with 71% of all you surveid saying they did not wish they had negotiated their fee lower; sounds as if most High St agents are doing a pretty good job of demonstrating their true value to clients.

From: Ben Hollis 23 July 2018 07:30 AM

I think this aspect of the industry has already been ‘cleaned up’ pretty well. Yes we do receive small rewards from some other referred companies (not most), and these are made transparent to the client. It is the client’s free choice. Ben Hollis Director www.Lancasters.org

From: Ben Hollis 21 June 2018 08:36 AM

Yes. We have vendors and landlords who own or work for online agencies.

From: Ben Hollis 20 June 2018 07:59 AM

There is a place for ‘discreet’ sales, we’ve used them to great effect, but only on very specific properties and circumstances. I don’t pretend to know enough about their specific market or target client, but I’d be concerned about having an agency ONLY dealing in those vendors.

From: Ben Hollis 05 June 2018 21:00 PM

Our reply to OTM’s offer: Thank you for your time last week, and your kind offer of all offices Free for the first year. At this time I’d like to politely decline. There are three main reasons for this, as we discussed: 1. There is no significant benefit to our clients. Any agent that ditched Zoopla and joined OTM showed they put their own financial interests above the interests of their clients. 2. You are just making Rightmove stronger, not weaker. For example, if an agent is paying £1,000 a branch to Rightmove and £300 a branch to OTM, Rightmove have established the agent has a £1,300pcm online marketing budget, can then up their fees to £1,300 knowing as the stronger site the agent will either find the extra or drop OTM. You used to work for Rightmove, you know this is how they calculate their fee increases. 3. Personally I don’t like the broken promises. You’ve lost my trust. Originally OTM guaranteed non high st (industrial estate and online) and corporate agents would never be allowed to join - they now are. You also promised clear and transparent pricing that wouldn’t alter from rate card - within a year you were offering me 80% discounts if I didn’t tell anyone, and now free. Having friends who own agencies who signed up with you at the start, you have not rewarded their loyalty and refunded their higher paid fees. Loyal agents have paid you more, and you’ve kept it. So at the moment I feel that any agent advertising on OTM, even for free, are demonstrating they put their own interests above their clients and are shortsightedly contributing to their own later Rightmove fee increases. Kind Regards,

From: Ben Hollis 01 March 2018 07:50 AM

Ha. I’ve never been referred to as a secret agent before. You’re welcome to visit me at my independent agency anytime you like. OTM’s ethos and ethics are aligned with mine. They made promises to their members (rules on pricing and joining criteria) which they have Uturned on. When I met with the OTM rep this week I had one simple question: “I always act in my clients best interests, how would joining OTM genuinely benefit them?”. She said she had no answer to that. And then there’s the argument on how they are actually making RM stronger... happy to explain that if needed. ben@lancasters.org

From: Ben Hollis 23 February 2018 20:45 PM

Not hard to sign up agents now it’s FREE. And in many case they literally can’t give it away. I wonder how their loyal agents feel knowing they have paid thousands and supported this flawed business which now gives it away to new agents.

From: Ben Hollis 23 February 2018 08:20 AM

TrustPilot is a marketing tool and, in my opinion, worthless as a review company. When PurpleBricks (and any other registered company) can remove honest negative reviews and add questionable positive reviews (from staff and their family) it is not an independent or impartial service. No genuine value to the consumer.

From: Ben Hollis 08 August 2017 07:59 AM

Anyone else having issues getting communication from Hystreet?

From: Ben Hollis 18 July 2017 20:04 PM

Another big step toward full automation.

From: Ben Hollis 13 January 2017 08:34 AM

From: Ben Hollis 08 December 2016 22:27 PM

I hope you like ours https://youtu.be/0HqncBQWuZI

From: Ben Hollis 06 December 2016 21:52 PM

Initially OTM did sell their services under the promise to adhere to a fix fee structure that saw early adopters receive slightly lower fees - circa £400pcm. My most recent sales call from OTM offered membership for just £50pcm. Existing loyal members are still paying the original higher rate. Had I been an early subscriber I would have felt mislead.

From: Ben Hollis 23 June 2016 07:32 AM

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