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‘Next generation’ lettings platform postpones its launch again

Accommodation.co.uk CEO Aaron Short says delay has been caused by switch from hybrid to franchise model over past few months.

Sheila Manchester

A lettings platform with national ambitions has again postponed its official launch as it switches from a Purplebricks-style model to a franchise system.

Accommodation.co.uk originally said it would be a hybrid lettings platform using local freelance accommodation managers who would ‘build relationships with landlords’.

But that was May 2018 and, although the company’s website is up and running, its CEO Aaron Short says the business has only soft-launched its new model while it looks for young agents to join its network. Instead of local accommodation managers, it is now looking for local licenced business partners to launch its ‘next generation letting agency’.

Accommodation is to charge them a £995 joining fee and £100 a month thereafter in a bid to take on the big franchised networks such as Belvoir and Martin & Co, whose franchises can cost up to £25,000 to buy plus considerable monthly payments.

lettings“We wanted to make the barriers to entry very small but we’ll still support them with local online marketing, training and software to get them off the ground,” says Short (left).

He also says that unlike other franchises, Accomodation will not take any of the fees its franchisees earn from landlords.

“We will enable them to concentrate on the lettings and the business generation while the heavy lifting will be done by our property management team at head office,” says Short.

“The idea is that they are then freed up go out and find their landlords, do their own marketing which we will then match pound for pound, service the landlords better.”

July 11, 2019

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