His CV alone justifies the accolade. Starting work as a sales negotiator in 1975, he worked at several independents before ending up at Prudential Property Services and then later holding several senior management positions at Connells.

In 2003 he set up consultancy Integra Property Services through which he provides both business advice and training, but more recently has also busy at OnTheMarket, Propertymark, Agents Together while also chairing the RICS’ Residential Faculty.

But he’s now, perhaps sensibly (given a triple heart bypass operation in 2021) decided to slow down and his New Year’s resolution was to go on holiday more, although it sounds like he’ll be still working from the beach or cruise deck.

Estate agent

“What Covid changed in many sectors including ours is that many of us can now do our jobs from anywhere in the world, although nothing replaces face-to-face meetings,” he says.

“I think the days of doing everything via Zoom is beginning to fade a little and more people are asking to do things in rooms rather than on video.

“A good example of that is at OnTheMarket where I gather, following the CoStar acquisition, its staff are being asked to return to the office.”

Young people both inside and outside the industry are fast losing the ability to communicate other than via text or email.”

“But what concerns me most is that young people both inside and outside the industry are fast losing the ability to communicate other than via text or email – no one picks up the phone and talks to people direct any longer.”

Day says that you can argue that this is what the consumer wants as tenants, landlords, buyers and sellers are all busy people too.

But it means that agents “don’t get under their skin” and understand their customers’ motivations and needs, and that the industry is becoming too transactional – the Rightmove factor if you like.

“If agents lose that questioning and communication skillset, they will be missing a trick – technology should be used to underpin these core face-to-face skills, not replace them,” he adds.

When Day joined the industry nearly 50 years ago, such ways of doing business were all agents had, along with their branch window, card index system and ads in the local paper.

Michael Portillo

“I began looking for a job after finishing my ‘O’ Levels at at Harrow County Grammar School for Boys, where Michael Portillo was the Head Boy incidentally, after deciding that ‘A’ Levels and a degree were not for me,” he says.

“I wasn’t sure which sector to go into but didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk and fortuitously a local firm was advertising for a trainee-cum-apprentice estate agent – and the rest is history.”

Day, who thinks Labour’s assertion that all estate agents should have at least an A-level is ‘nonsense’, says that although his starting salary was ‘a pittance’ he soon overtook friends working in other sectors as he qualified and then began moving up the career ladder.

What he says hasn’t changed is that, largely, estate agency remains an industry that pays intelligent and hard-working people good salaries once their initial training is completed.

£75,000 potential

Recruiter Andrew Deverell-Smith recently revealed that a successful sales negotiator working at a big-name urban estate agency can usually earn from £40,000 to £75,000, not a bad salary for someone only a few years out of school or college.

Day says he was paid £11.50p a week at his first job, more than half that of a similar job at a retailer as a trainee – but the difference was by the time he got his second job, his income had become performance related.
Another change that Day has noticed is that, when he was starting out, he got to work in all the different departments on the firm.

“Now, entrants to the industry often have to decide there and then which sector – commercial, lettings, sales, property management – they want to go into at the outset,” he says.

“I think that’s a disadvantage – I was helped by having a broad view of the industry and not being immediately pigeon-holed.”

Asked what achievement he would pick out from his long career to date, Day says it’s the large number of people that he hopes have appreciated the help he’s given whether it be mentored colleagues, home movers, people he’s trained or those seeking help via Agents Together.

Despite his promise to take it easier, it’s going to be some time before he stops doing that.

The post Interview: ‘I’ve loved every minute since I became an estate agent – 49 years ago!’ appeared first on The Negotiator.

26-year-old Hannah Chappatte believes she can do it and has set up Hybr.co.uk. It is a platform for first-time renters and in particular students and young graduates. Investors clearly believe in her pitch; the firm raised £3.24 million in funding via investment syndicate Adjuvo recently and backers included a member of the Rothschild family. This is double her original funding target, reflecting the considerable investor appetite for rental platforms like Hybr.

“This money will be used to fund our rapid expansion across the UK and capture market share at pace,” she says. “We can do this because we’re a proptech platform that uses tech to streamline the lettings process. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got a single property or a portfolio with 20,000 units, you can plug our service into your offering.”

She says around 70% of her landlords are private, with the rest being BTR or PBSA operators, both of which use her platform as either ‘tenant find only’ or a wider service that includes referencing and contract processing.

Her business, which is based in London, is progressing in the right direction so far. It already operates in ten of the UK’s main student cities including London, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield with plans to add another 20 by the end of 2024. And other than offering tenants, landlords and BTR/PBSA operators one common platform, its other main schtick is to give inexperienced renters advice on how to navigate the private rented sector while also making it easier for landlords to let out their properties by accessing ‘pre-qualified’ tenants.

Student inspiration

Her decision to launch the business was based largely on her shock as a student renter that there was no central place to find rented properties for students that offered a decent experience. Her belief is that the fragmented market and sometimes shark-infested renting waters that student must navigate offer an opportunity for a better service.

It’s strange. There are marketplaces for flights, clothes and bills – but not for student renting.

“It’s strange – there are marketplaces for flights, clothes and bills but not for student renting,” she says. “During my time studying in Bristol and in my final year, researching the market, I also spoke to many landlords many of whom reported losing thousands of pounds in rent each year from voids, and who said they were struggling to deal with the high number of applicants and enquiries each time a property was advertised.

“This exposes them to making errors and not choosing the best tenants for their properties.”

But Hybr is not a portal. It advertises landlords’ properties on Rightmove and positions itself as a middleman between property manager and tenants. “We say landlords of whatever size should focus their spend on a good experience once the tenant has arrived and use us to make acquiring those tenants as seamless as possible,” she says.

Chappatte also makes the same argument for letting agencies. Her platform already works with several big ones and she says they have plugged Hybr into their processes to enable staff to concentrate on the property and tenancy management.

“We help increase the profitability of agents because Hybr streamlines and automates the pre-qualification of,” she adds. It is also getting ready to offer a guarantor system for tenants who come from abroad or low-income backgrounds in the UK. “It’s unfair that the guarantor system is free for the wealthy who can ask their family to help, and expensive the poor,” she says.

Hybr is to launch a loans system with an as-yet unnamed banking partner that will enable tenants to pay up to six months’ rent in advance and then pay it back when their student loan arrives, bolstering their creditworthiness and decreasing the need for a guarantor the year after.

Talking of money, Hybr also makes it clear that landlords will pay less than letting agents to use its service. It has a fixed fee approach depending on which sort of landlord you are. This is 25% of the first month’s rent for ‘tenant find’ only and 40% of the same for its wider, pre-tenancy service. Consequently most of its private landlords tend to be self-managers as BTR and PBSA operators tend to be too.

But unusually, Hybr does get involved with tenants if a landlord is slow to respond to or complete repairs and maintenance and Chappatte says her team works hard to ensure there are clear two-communications channels between renter and landlord after the tenancy begins.

So how would she sum up her business? “One way to describe Hybr is an Airbnb-style service but for long-term first-time renters that offers a better way to filter and help prospective tenants.” Even more unusually, Chappatte says her business will reach break even by the end of 2024 – something many proptech business in the residential market will look upon jealously.

The post Agent Interview – Hannah Chappatte, Hybr.co.uk appeared first on The Negotiator.

That grouping is now the largest concentration of agency brands within the UK operating some 1,200 branches and holding a 10% market share. But there is a new player in this corporate market, which has been on the acquisition trail since 2020 armed with City money and hoping to become a significant holder of market share within the sales, lettings and property management sector.

Lomond Group has acquired 50 or so estate agencies since launching, spending millions on the purchase of both small, medium and large firms across the UK from Aberdeen to Brighton, with almost monthly announcements of new acquisitions.

Perhaps its biggest coup was the purchase of Scottish sales and lettings agency giant DJ Alexander, making it the biggest industry operator north of the border.

Steering the Lomond Group ship, which has its headquarters in central London, is Ed Phillips who joined as CEO in July last year after a long stint at Foxtons.

The Neg sat down with him for a candid chat about his career, the group’s acquisition strategy and its future.

Have you taken the ‘Foxtons model’ to Lomond with you?

“Definitely because it’s become part of my DNA over the past 20 years or so. That includes working hard and going that extra mile and having a culture of reward and recognition, trying to always be one step ahead of the competition, always finding reasons to do things rather than not to, looking forward, dealing with bumps in the road effectively and ensuring you’re always relevant to the customer.

“I don’t think what Foxtons did was unique – the company just created a platform for certain traits, characteristics, and behaviours to be successful and people have been able to mirror that across the industry and the competition has to a certain extent, caught up.

“It’s about the evolution of our industry as a whole and not just in London anymore.”

LOMOND Brighton and South East team

How was Lomond created?

“At the end of 2020 Lomond was just 2,000 properties under management and a couple of PRS hubs plus the Yorkshire Linley & Simpson business already backed by LDC.

“And then, financed by them as our debt partner, we’ve been on a huge acquisition journey and we now employ over 1,100 people and operate across five regions managing 40,000 properties.”

What makes Lomond different from the other competing firms that ambitious estate agents have to choose from when looking to develop their career?

“That’s a good question, the answer to which I’m working hard to articulate both internally and externally because I feel that we are very different in our approach to estate agency. For example, if you take the franchise model [eg Belvoir] they offer a pre-packaged centralised support platform but once it’s handed over to the franchisee, it’s very much down to them to make it a success, and that’s why you tend to get performance inconsistencies from one branch or market to another.

“If you look at Connells/Countrywide it was always all about capturing as much high street market share as possible via brands like Bairstow Eves at the lower end and Hamptons at the top end.

“But with that model it’s not joined up and one danger of it is that lots of opportunities slip through the gaps because each brand operates independently. And there’s Leaders Romans Group as well, which, like us is looking to grow via acquisition – but there is not necessarily a distinct LRG blueprint that those agencies that are bought must adopt. “But what we’re trying to do is have all the single practices and systems in place as if we were a single brand across the UK but without losing the DNA and geographical nuances of why those businesses have been successful.

I want people to be excited to be part of the Lomond Group.”

“I often say our greatest strength is our centralised and decentralised model, but it can also be a challenge. I want all of our regions to have the autonomy and the understanding that what works in Scotland, for example, is very different and may not work in their region, but unite them all via a centralised CRM system. We also encourage people to share their knowledge and experience with colleagues from across the group. I want people to be proud to work for their brand, but also excited to be part of Lomond and have the two sit very comfortably together.”

How are you going to strike the balance between ‘corporate’ and ‘local’ that Countrywide arguable got wrong?

“The key bit is to ensure that we have a premium regional hub business and that when we acquire an estate agency it is integrated into that business – rather than having five or six acquisitions all competing against each other on their patch, and ensuring that each region has one or maybe two strong and powerful brands. Therefore, when we go and look for a new region to enter, we will identify the best available business that we can acquire, other than any clearly unavailable existing alternatives like say Knight Frank or Connells/Countrywide brands, and then see which is the best privately owned business with the best practices and a good lettings book. We will then make that agency the hub brand and use it to make the ‘spoke’ acquisitions of smaller agencies or lettings books – and ensure that the customer interaction is with just one brand.

“Lomond wants to avoid that issue of having a very fragmented regional collection of people and brands where no one understands what it means to be part of the larger group. That’s why across our six regions we only have nine or ten main brands.”

‘Spoke’ acquisitions will be business owners looking to exit the industry or retire?

“Yes, someone with one or two branches who wants to sell their business for personal reasons or offload their lettings book.”

Dexters famously doesn’t have a huge HQ – so will you be keeping yours slim? And where will talented/ambitious potential joiners fit into the structure?

“Either or really – if they want to start off in lettings or sales it will be in the regions and the same with our client accounting and property management functions Anything customer-facing is being kept in the regions – I don’t want to have what Countrywide had and have a huge call centre in Birmingham where staff tended to forget who they were answering the phone to.

“The perception that local knowledge and capability is key is important to our customers when deciding which agency to use but what we do have national marketing, finance, operations and HR hubs in London and Edinburgh and that’s how we power those regions. I want to take as much of the non-customer facing operational administration from the regions so they can focus on interacting with their clients and customers.”

You don’t appear to have operations or a regional hub, etc in London – why is that?

It’s part of the plan to move into the Capital – it’s where 30% of all transaction are in the UK. We have a Lomond investment team that we set up 18 months ago which is managing the 3,000 properties we already manage for Build to Rent clients, largely in London, but in terms of a hub in London we’re actively looking for the right business/brand to acquire that will sit best with the rest of our model in the UK. In London it’s about doing the right thing at the right time rather than just having a footprint for the sake of it.”

It’s about the evolution of our industry as a whole and not just in London anymore.”

You are owned by a finance business – the assumption would be that their overall aim is to build a big estate agency and then sell it?

“My role is to build the business and steer it in the right way for the long term but also deal with the direction of the board and shareholders – sometimes that can be at odds with one anther but yes, we are owned by a private equity firm.

“Anyone who understands about the private equity journey knows their aim is to realise shareholder return but also help the company find the next set of investors to take it on the next journey.

“But LDC is unusual because they are the Lloyds Bank private equity arm and don’t have such hard time limits to exit businesses because of the way they’re set up. We’re on the runway but there’s a long way to go.”

Ed Phillips – biography

After a BA degree in Law & Economics at Leicester University, Phillips joined Daimler-Chrysler UK (i.e. Mercedes Benz) as a graduate trainee in 1999 as part of a two-year graduate development programme, which saw him also do three months in different departments within the UK arm of the German car manufacturing giant. “That gave me the taste for customer-service and at the end of the graduate scheme I wanted to go into its sales operation but a lot of the established figures there were quite old compared to me and I wanted to try something fresh,” he says. 

So In 2001 Phillips switched industries, joining London estate agent Foxtons as a lettings negotiator, working his way up over the next 17 years to Chief Sales Officer in 2018. 

“Like many people who joined Foxtons back in the naughties I had seen the adverts and thought ‘why not give this a go’ and the rest, in my case, is history,” he adds. “I then left Foxtons for Lomond, which I thought was a pretty good stint but remember Foxtons was three very distinct companies during my time.That included the Jon Hunt, private equity ownership and publicly-listed company eras all of which were very distinct in terms of focus, behaviours and the way that the business operated.” 

Phillips ran the lettings side of the business for over a decade before he left, saying he eventually decided he wanted to tackle something different but not another London lettings operation. 

“I wanted something that was a [growth] journey, which Foxtons had embarked on many years ago in terms of development and sophistication, so Lomond felt like a fantastic opportunity,” he adds. 

He has also completed several London Business School courses.

The post INTERVIEW: The ex-Foxtons high flyer leading Lomond expansion charge appeared first on The Negotiator.

Property owners expect a round-the-clock service, constant and timely updates…

This high-pressure sector is not for the feint-hearted. Property owners expect a round-the-clock service, constant and timely updates and often much more than property management. For example, Ulhaq says she recently helped a client on his way by plane to New York to find a hotel room by the time he landed, even though it was already getting late in London and she was at the cinema. “But if you think prime landlords are handsoff then you’d be wrong; they want to know what’s going on and be kept in the loop all the time, so for me communication is paramount whether it’s on WhatsApp, phone, email or whatever,” she says.

International client base

“Mine is also a very international client base including American, Middle Eastern and Europeans with investments in London, so as a minimum we update them at the end of every month on what’s happened, even if it’s nothing to report other than the rent.

“They just want reassurance so if we do have a phone call, I follow it up in writing. That’s something I learned at Knight Frank – leave no room for misunderstandings.”

Ulhaq says her clients have properties in London because the Capital’s property market is always going to retain its value and the city is an ideal place to diversity their portfolio – although it does have quirks; for example its rents are quoted weekly rather than monthly.

“But we don’t have enough stock to meet demand at the moment so it’s not surprising that rent rises are in the double digits,” she says. “Add to that talk of a mansion tax and the renting reforms going through Parliament, which are just another attack on landlords – speaking as a landlord myself and not a property manager – this means the market is shrinking as some landlords look for other places to invest their money.”

She points out that these measures are unlikely to trouble the super prime landlord and investor market.

Long-term investors

These individuals are in it for the long term and she says that one of its most contentious proposals – the removal of Section 21 ‘no fault’ evictions – is not a factor in most prime landlords’ activities because very few tenants need to evicted.

“I understand that tenants need more protection but landlords need Section 21 ‘no fault’ notices to evict on reasonable grounds. It’s unfair that, to get a property, a landlord will have to go court under the proposed reforms; we need a compromise,” she says. Ulhaq reveals she’s only had to ask two tenants to leave a property since she began working in London.

“One case was a wealthy renter who had complained about mould in a part of the flat and, despite it being fixed at considerable cost including new windows, refused to pay any rent and fell into £80,000 of rent arrears,” she explains.

“He had a well-known model as a partner and to solve the problem we contacted her manager and negotiated that they left, something as a smaller company we can do informally but that a corporate would have conducted via lawyers.”

One thing Ulhaq cannot deny is that she’s chatty – something she posted about on her LinkedIn profile highlighting her ability to talk, but says the key other skill that is useful in the intoxicating world of prime property is resilience.

In this market you need a thick skin and the ability not to take things personally.

“In this market you need a thick skin and the ability not to take things personally because with high-end clientele you’ve got to have that detachment, be succinct and concise in your work and give them the problem, the solution and the timeline,” she adds.

Lifestyle service to the stars

One thing that sets her apart from most other lettings professionals in the UK is that she also offers a concierge-style ‘lifestyle service’ which “is very much a 100% London thing” she says.

“We work with some of the world’s big media production companies and help bring A-listers to London – for example one recently rented a property for £20,000 a week and had their luggage delivered three days in advance. We had people in to prepare all the wardrobes, stock the fridge and in general make the house ‘turnkey’ so all they had to do was walk in through the front door – oh yes, I and the introducing agent, were at the front door at 5am to welcome them when they arrived – which happens six or seven times a year.”

Talking to Ulhaq, it’s clear that the service her firm supplies for clients means she’s always on duty and admits that she never says ‘no’ to a client request, although naturally her ‘lifestyle concierge’ services are charge on top of her firm’s property management fees. Despite her bulging diary and constantly bleeping phone, Ulhaq says she is considering expansion overseas although would never opening branches like a traditional agency either inside or outside London. She says her main focus is to build her network of introductions and contacts who recommend her, not increase her overheads with a high street presence.

“It’s all about keeping my relationship with client to the forefront because I know that at some point down the line, that will come back to me. It’s the people that make me excited about my job – people are buying from me now so to speak and that’s what I love.”

Yasmin Ulhaq – career history

Yasmin was brought up in Edinburgh and had a father who operated a residential and commercial property business in the city and that “growing up I watched him navigate the intricacies of real estate and as I got older I would help him draft tenancies, collect rent, carry out inspections and therefore I picked up his passion for everything residential property related,” she says.

Yasmin then went on to complete a law degree as a mature student and began using her student loan money to begin building her own portfolio while she studied and, at 21, had bought her first property, a five-bedroom Victorian apartment in Glasgow and rented it out to other students.

On finishing her studies, Yasmin relocated to London working for a recruitment firm and, after having her first child, began investing in a property portfolio with her husband. After building it up, she realised she wanted to stay in London and have a career in property.

Knight Frank apprenticeship

After working at several boutique property management firms, she joined Knight Frank in 2016 working within its prime property management team.

“I wanted to take the next step and get into the more high-end property sector in places like Knightsbridge and Kensington and after talking to local agents realised you needed to be qualified and really ‘up your game’ so working at Knight Frank was an amazing experience getting involved with an exceptional client base including family and institutional offices, embassies and the entertainment world,” she says.

After nearly five years she decided to part ways with Knight Frank because it didn’t give her the work flexibility she needed as the mother of two children doing their 11-plus exams.

“One of my clients said I could do the job on my own and provide an even higher level of service, so I set up Glenfield Property Management which is a family-run service specialising in luxury homes and lifestyle services in London – and sometimes further afield – for property investors and landlords.

“I didn’t feel I could really get to know my clients at Knight Frank because it had such a big portfolio of properties, but Glenfield enables me to focus on a smaller group of core London, super and super-prime clients and offer a higher level of service,” she says.

The post Agent to the stars appeared first on The Negotiator.

But London-based Plentific is becoming a player in these sectors with a single platform that offers a wide range of services to ‘asset owners’ from private landlords to large providers such as social housing operators and even hotels. Established in 2013, it uses a cloud-based software system and a national network of tradespeople to deliver its service, backed by £100m from investors including, two years ago, an injection of £80m to help it go international.

Plentific deals in what the firm refers to as ‘real-time property operations’ that, for example, tracks property repairs from beginning to end regardless of where the complaint comes from, and ensures compliance with regulations. This was a key learning from the recent Rochdale scandal following the death of toddler Awaab Ishtak, whose parents’ complaints to their housing provider fell on deaf ears with tragic results.

To counter this kind of obfuscation, Plentific says it connects property owners, operators, service providers, and tenants via a single platform transparently.

Personally I was doing something with a positive impact on the world.

The company has also been busy in letting and made the industry news last year when it bought lettings software specialist TouchRight, a York-based company founded in 2012 by husband and wife team Terry and Rachel Lightfoot.

It enables agents to create a host of bespoke property inspection reports, including inventories, midterms, check-ins, check-outs, HMO and Legionella Risk Assessments with a few simple clicks.

The future of property management?

The Neg sat down with Henrik Von Bahr, its Vice President of Sales to ask – is it the future of property management?

Nigel Lewis – The Neg

Von Bahr joined the firm last year following a fast-rising career in the City including stints at Nomura, RBS and Morgan Stanley and he says although Plentific’s focus includes the private rented sector including signing up larger landlords and property management firms as clients, it has bigger fish to fry at the moment.

This is because its platform and service is better suited to the big owner-operators such as social housing and managing agents.

“They want a fully end-to-end system and so our approach is to be partner-led and we have a number of integrations including two software suppliers to the private rented sector,” he says.

“They will use the CRM of our partners but we will provide the maintenance – so whether its landlords or managing agents, both will be able to use our flexible supply chain.

“Plentific is also about innovation – I was sat with several CEOs recently who said our platform was the only significant tech development within the industry for many years.

“I believe the property industry has been failed by tech in the past – many people have promised a lot but not delivered it. So it’s time that housing providers realise they are not tech companies but customer service organisations.”

Nevertheless Von Bahr says the PRS is very much within “the scope of our ‘go to market’ ambitions but it’s just that right now social housing has a much stronger fit”.

This is because, for example, many housing providers are strong in their local or regional areas where they use their internal workforce, but visibility of repairs and maintenance disappears once they move into new geographic areas and outsource this to third parties.

Empowering the team

“Plentific is designed to knit this all together and “empower every member of the team and make what’s going on transparent and easy to track,” he says. “Once providers have the data, they and their teams can make the best decisions.”

If this all sounds applicable to the build-torent market because many operators increasingly have properties all over the UK, then you would be correct. Van Bahr says this is particularly true for most BTR operators when they become responsible for maintenance and repairs after the two-year contractual ‘snagging’ period.

So why did Von Bahr join Plentific? He reveals he was an early investor in the company when it was still ‘finding its feet’ and trying to work out if it was public or B2B facing service (it used to have its own branded vans) and, after it signed up its first big clients including Notting Hill Genesis, helped it raise more funds – somewhat successfully.

“I saw that there was huge potential for this organisation and its platform and unlike my previous career, I could see that personally I was doing something with a positive impact on the world because we are improving the lives of a huge number – potentially soon millions – of people on a daily basis who live in homes maintained and manager via our platform.”

The post Plenty to think about appeared first on The Negotiator.

One success story is Rayna Hunter, who after several decades spent working in PR including a stint running her own firm, joined London prime estate agency LH1 Global in 2017, rising to become its CEO in October last year. Here she reveals what it’s like been joining the property industry and what it’s been like being one of the relatively few CEO-level women within the sector.

Why the switch to property?

“Property is in my blood – from a young age I was exposed to the industry regularly when helping my father who led many successful property businesses when I was growing up. I was always gaining experience where I could, whether it was answering phones for an estate agency or sitting and taking notes during negotiations for high-profile land or development deals.

“As a self-starter and extremely motivated, one of the first careers I embarked on involved the formation of my own PR and events business, which I ran successfully for over a decade. This initial career path involved arranging high profile charity events culminating in over half a million pounds being raised over the years, plus multimillion- pound events and parties for high-profile individuals, including booking Rod Stewart for a private party in The Bahamas for one client.

I may have entered the property world late, but to me it’s all about delivering results.

“Then in 2018 I started working alongside my husband, Benjamin Hunter, at LH1 Global a leading International off-plan property consultancy, which was growing quickly. I was originally heading up the UK sales department then global sales and then proudly taking the role of CEO which is testament to my business acumen and previous history in property.

“I may have entered the property world late, but to me it’s all about delivering results, to be able to work on some incredible projects on a daily basis is one that drives me on to keep leading and learning.”

What’s it been like joining the property industry later in life?

“You could say I came onto the scene in later life [Rayna joined LH1 in 2017 when she was 57 years old] and especially as a woman in a leading position, there could have been added challenges in what is a typically male dominated industry.

“But I’ve only seen my age and my gender as a positive. I try to use my experience and world viewpoint to create a more diverse team that can deliver the best results for our clients. I still have enough background knowledge to be well informed of how the industry and property market works, whilst I can bring other skills and a fresh perspective to try to do things differently and improve current practices.

“There are still misconceptions of hiring older people into new roles, however, there is a lot of experience that is being lost and I am a good case study of being able to step into a new role in a relatively new industry and adapt and deliver.”

Do women find it harder in the industry?

“No, I don’t believe so, but I do believe a lot of that comes back to the experience I brought into the role. I wasn’t a junior making their first steps on the career ladder, I already had a base of knowledge and professional confidence developed over many years. But I still had to gain the respect of my clients and male peers. I would say I have done that by being assured and confident in my abilities, it is this more than anything else that has allowed me to enjoy success in the industry.

“I feel that people have judged me by who I am as a person, rather than the fact I’m female, and that has allowed me to build trust and strong relationships. If there has been any advantage to me being a woman in the industry it is the fact I may approach certain aspects of the role with a different viewpoint than some of my male counterparts and the fact I hold a senior role means that I can direct real change. I believe there is still some way to go until women can feel as true equals in the sector, but I certainly don’t think we are necessarily held back, like anything it is just going to take time for overarching views or stereotypes to change.”

Are there enough women at the top?

“Women can play a major role alongside their male peers in senior roles. Women must not feel intimidated by working in property or in a male workplace and need to be given the confidence and reassurance that they will be working in a secure, exciting, and challenging environment, whilst also having a voice that can be heard and respected.

“In my opinion, you just need to embrace the challenge, it can be a rough and ready environment at times, especially if you need to spend time onsite. My team bought me pink safety boots, so I can still embrace my femininity, but that doesn’t stop me commanding the best standards on a working site. It’s how you carry yourself that’s important. Ultimately, I believe there is a bright future for women in this industry, attitudes have changed enormously, and I hope that I and other female leaders in the sector can continue to inspire the next generations to get involved and continue to drive change.”

Has LH1 Global expanded since you joined?

“It has been an incredibly successful period for the business during a time when the UK property market has stagnated. I believe we have achieved this by firstly building a strong team that has a multitude of strengths and experience that is perfectly blended to deliver excellent results for our developer clients and across multiple projects. It is also largely down to the fact that we have established a fantastic model in the sales and marketing of off-plan city centre multi-unit developments.

“Overall, we find that our approach leads to faster sales and completions due to purchasers being managed carefully to ensure that if there are any issues, we are on hand to provide support or find a solution to the problem.

“We are also very good at identifying emerging markets before they become overheated and work closely with our clients to source strategic sites, which will deliver homes that will prove popular once released onto the market in spite of any potential negative market conditions. This has allowed us to expand the business into the international sphere and take our model to new and emerging global markets and it is a very exciting time to be spearheading the business alongside Benjamin Hunter who is driving this growth from our Dubai office.” I may have entered the property world late, but to me it’s all about delivering results.

WHAT IS LH1 GLOBAL?

Founded in 2017 originally as LH1 London the business has delivered prime projects across major UK cities in the past five years including those in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Derby and Ashford. It also has a recently-opened office in Dubai which founder Benjamin Hunter now leads.

LH1 works with several well-known names within the UK agency sectors including LSL New Homes and Pygott & Crone.

The company was set up with an aim to become the UK’s leading international property consultancy, specialising in the off-plan sales and marketing of prime city centre residential developments.

Hunter says this has now achieved and it’s now time to “move on to the global stage and take our trusted and proven model to overseas developments”, he says.

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Its property division has some 1,500 offices in the US and beyond and 50,000 agents but it’s not like the other American brands such as Keller Williams which have entered the UK housing market recently; BHHS in the US and the UK is a traditional branch-based estate agency.

Bikhit is the son of Kay & Co founder and now chairman Samuel Bikhit, joining the family firm in 1997 in a sales role and in 2008 becoming its managing director.

Five years ago he led the drive to join the BHHS global network and, although he’s not met Warren Buffett, says the deal was signed off by him, as was the decision to add another London firm to the family, Marler & Marler, in 2021.

The Neg sat down with Bikhit to find out how being subsumed into such a huge global organisation has fared for a four-branch family estate agency.

How’s it been going?

“It’s been an interesting journey made more colourful by the wonders of Brexit which obviously had a big impact on our market, along with Covid of course.

“But despite these challenges we acquired Marler & Marler two years ago, and we’re getting a high number of extremely good quality referrals from the rest of the BHSS network particularly in Italy, Spain and Portugal.

It’s been painless being integrated into the organisation; it’s got a great business ethos behind it…

“The benefit of being part of this network is that people who perhaps wouldn’t have engaged with us when we were just Kay & Co are now keen to speak to us because the Berkshire Hathaway is such a globally recognised name.

“And it’s created some very interesting opportunities for us that you may be reading about in the coming months.

“It’s also good being part of a company like BHHS that, due to the business ethos of Warren Buffett, takes a more long-term approach to development – and coaches the firms within its global network to do better.

“And overall it’s been painless being integrated into the organisation; it’s got a great business ethos behind it and BHSS has a very relationship driven culture, which is unusual because many agents and brokers tend to have a very transactional mentality but within BHSS that’s not the case.”

What’s it like operating in such an unusual and rarefied market like Prime Central London?

“Yes our four offices mean we’re dealing with clients and properties in and around Hyde Park and north-east into Kings Cross but it’s quite varied – for example Knightsbridge is almost all international while Marylebone still has a very strong domestic market, but Kings Cross is very dominated by investors who bough off-plan in all the new developments around the station.

“But we’re not just focussing on the very expensive, multi-million pounds properties in these areas – we like to think we’re more approachable because we also deal with homes in the hundreds of thousands too.”

What do you think of the hybrid approach some other US property fi rms have introduced to the UK?

“We are very much a traditional British estate agency and we didn’t want to go down that self-employed broker route even though there is a place for it in the UK and some people are starting to do it well.

“We took the decision that we didn’t want to change our business model because the traditional approach was working well for us and the Berkshire Hathaway name has elevated us and given us a much louder voice in a very crowded market place.

“There are a lot of smoke and mirrors in this industry, so having a physical presence on the high street with a branch all backed by one of the largest property companies in the world gives comfort to buyers and vendors that in six months’ time we won’t be out of business.”

What does the future hold?

“We want to expand and have more offices but it will be a bit like a hotel chain such as the Mandarin Oriental – the best locations in the best cities in the world – and so for us that would be the best locations in London within the market that we serve so well – we don’t want to be everywhere.

“Also, I think we would look at applying that approach to other cities or areas of the UK in the future but we’re focussing on London. The UK is unusual because so much of our market is concentrated in the capital, rightly or wrongly.

“Conversely, if you look at Italy for example, it has multiple cities including Milan and Rome where international buyers would be interested in purchasing or renting properties.

JOINING THE LARGEST COMPANY IN THE WORLD

BHHS Kay & Co : Marler & Marler has a combined five branches in Knightsbridge, Bayswater, Marylebone, Sloane Street and Kings Cross and is part of Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, the largest property company in the world by number of transactions.

BHHS is one of America’s fastest-growing real estate brokerage networks following its launch in September 2013.

Brand expansion is now underway in global markets which include in addition to London, network members operating in Canada, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Dubai.

BHHS is owned by HomeServices of America (HSoA) which is the United States largest residential real estate brokerage. HomeServices of America is owned by Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a consolidated subsidiary of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Boss Martin Bikhit says his goal is to ultimately have ten branches in the capital, pointing out that Buffett would never associate with or invest in a company that was ‘standing still’.

“Warren Buffett is renowned for making the right calls on markets, and his approach has been to invest in good quality businesses and then leave them alone,” he adds.

The UK operation that Bikhit runs now has 40 employees. In 2018 Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices – Kay & Co won Bronze for Property Management Department of the Year in The Negotiator Awards.

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Established four years ago, it already has a portfolio of 200 properties under management across West London with plans to expand further afield. The business model behind it is simple, which Sullivan says is surprising given so many people talk about ‘disruption’ within the industry. His firm’s 11-strong team find properties within neighbourhoods on a client’s behalf, usually in areas where professionals like to live, upgrade them into des-rez accommodation, improve their energy efficiency and then ensure each tenancy and property is run properly. “By upgrading our EPCs and making the properties more energy efficient, we’re creating 1% more yield on average for our clients,” he says. “We’re also running a project to eventually have all of the properties within our portfolio being zero emission homes.”

Increased returns

Consequently, and with cost control at the fore, Sullivan says his firm’s clients, who are either landlords, institutional money or ‘family office’ investors, see their returns increased by an average 40% on an annual basis for properties that his firm picks, upgrades and operates when compared to traditionally-sourced and operated ones.

We’re running a project to eventually have all of the properties within our portfolio being zero emission homes.

This is helped by the firm’s in-house rent pricing software and its own house-keeping operation for shorter lets. Smarter Rent, which is based in Richmond, West London, is essentially a ‘build-to-rent’ style service including flexible tenancies for tenants that can run for weeks or years and a concierge-style property management service.

“Build-to-rent is expanding because the professional money behind it is very patient, they have very large sums of cash to deploy and therefore BTR can spend big on research to find out what tenants want,” says Sullivan. “We’re emulating what the build-to-rent operators are doing but rather than providing homes just for young people in city centre apartment blocks, we’re after tenants in suburban areas and include a wider range of ages.

“What we’re doing isn’t terribly sophisticated, we just want to offer a renting experience that is based on listening to both landlords and tenants, rather than just doing it the way it’s always been done.” He says there are other agencies doing part of what Smarter Rent does, but he’s yet to come across one that’s doing exactly what they do.

Proptech start

Sullivan, like his business partner, started out in estate agency before delving into the worlds of initially fintech and later proptech – the latter of which he sold to Nationwide – and then helped establish Sutherland’s business. Sutherland began Smarter Rent because he became a single father, didn’t want to work full-time in central London any longer and consequently set up a business dealing with friends and family who wanted to invest in property.

“I came on board after it had been running for about two years and realised that he had something really special here because he made it easier for both new and existing property investors to acquire properties by doing the hard work for them; sourcing properties, kicking the bricks, completing the purchase negotiations, running property management and, more recently, all the design of the refurbs too,” he says. “We do the desk research to ensure we know how to design each property so that each one gives the best returns for an investor – as well as working out where to buy.”

Sullivan says that, for example, they researched from their own data which items were being damaged most often by tenants in rental properties and designed theirs to prevent this, consequently reducing maintenance costs.

One direct comparison with build-to-rent is that Smarter Rent offers flexible tenancy contracts and, although Sullivan is mindful that it’s a “strong statement”, says traditional agents are a “bit out of date and that the market has really changed”. This is something the Government agrees on; its Renters (Reform) Bill includes plans to usher in periodic tenancies and bin ASTs.

BTR opportunity

“A large portion of tenants are now over 35 years-old, with pets and children in tow, plus more renters are now over 50 years-old, but the ‘product’ hasn’t changed,” he adds. “That’s where we and the BTR operators see the opportunity.” Sullivan says his tenants want a ‘home’ not a property and therefore seek security of tenure – so Smarter Rent offers contracts of between one week and 36 months to serve both younger people who want short stays (and who are prepared to pay more for short-lets) with bills included and furnished properties, while at the other extreme also catering for older tenants who may want to stay in their properties ‘for ever’.

Tenants are also offered one-sided tenancy breaks where only they can give notice – assuming they pay the rent and look after the property – and agree to RPI-linked annual rent rises.

“This is much better because the tenants know what’s coming rather than being surprised by a huge rise after five or ten years of no rent rises,” he says. “It’s not fair on tenants when the rises are arbitrary and not transparent.”

“As a business, we’re growing fast because investors realise that they can make better returns than they would on their own, without lifting a finger, and that’s good because the PRS desperately needs fresh investors, so you’ve got to make it easier to get into the market.

Views on Buy-To-Let

“One error that many BTL investors make is to play it safe and only buy in areas they know or that are local – which is understandable but it’s not how you get better returns on your investment,” says Sullivan. “For example, there are many landlords who have long-standing properties or portfolios within Zones One and Two [of London’s Underground network] who don’t realise there are opportunities further out or if they do, don’t know where to look.”

Sullivan has also been watching the launch of the Government’s Renters (Reform) Bill but, unlike many commentators within the sector, says better returns for investors and the reforms within the draft legislation are “two sides of the same coin”. “What we’re doing is offering solutions to many of the challenges that the Bill seeks to address but I think many traditional agents and landlords don’t realise that their less flexible approach is soon going to come to a crunch point as the market changes as build to rent unit numbers grow and the reforms change everything,” he says.

This crunch point is also being accelerated by the hikes in BTL mortgages rates, which are likely to stay high for the foreseeable future. “Some landlords will quit, and more than usual have been, but those that remain can make a difference and have a positive impact on the market by changing the way the properties are rented and operated,” adds Sullivan. “And the returns will be better too.”

CURRICULA VITAE

ALEX SULLIVAN – started out at Buckinghamshire fi rm Michael Anthony Estate Agents in 1999, leaving after three years to join fintech FX fi rm World First where he rose to become its Group Chief Commercial Officer. He then set up property search AI chatbot ems.ai which he sold to Nationwide in November 2018, then worked for several tech platforms including as a NED before co-founding Smarter Rent with Sutherland.

ADRIAN SUTHERLAND – started out in 2001 as a negotiator and later senior sales neg at High Wycombe fi rm Hurst Estate agents before becoming a property investment consultant for three years and then joining FX fi rm World First where he stayed for five years. In 2014 he launched online property marketplace BeStreetSmart, and in 2016 created Smarter Rent with Sullivan.

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