Country life
Nigel Lewis meets an enterprising agent who has married apparently disparate interests to create a proptech portal for horse-lovers searching for the country life.
CURRICULUM VITAE: SIMON TOMLINSON
He joined DDM Residential in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire in 2014 as a negotiator before setting with Purplebricks as an LPE in 2017 but then, after six months, joining Brown & Co in Brigg as a Residential Property Manager in late 2017. Then in 2021 he set up his own agency RELD Property.
Tomlinson tells The Negotiator that he realised there was a significant gap in the market for a rural and particularly equestrian property business app, tailored to enthusiasts using digital and social media. So he set about establishing the platform while growing his property business too.
“We know that horse owners looking to buy a property are looking for a minimum of five acres, stables and a menage but are also keen to know about proximity to local competition venues, annexes, outbuildings and access to local bridleways, for example,” he says.
“There are very few opportunities online for them to filter their searches, particularly so on the big portals.
“It became clear to us that even in the equestrian world this kind of ‘pack’ of information wasn’t available, so we have created an app that provides that within a ‘lifestyle’ format including a property portal, business directory, a marketplace, chatrooms, mapping technology and a ride tracking functionality.
“We also list properties by more traditional metrics such as number of bedrooms and price, of course.
“But based on my research only 1% estate agency websites have the ability to search for properties based on how much acreage comes within them.”
Tomlinson says the opportunity for his business is significant; there are some 374,000 horse-owning households in the UK, many of whom struggle to find the properties they’re after using traditional portal or agent website filters when moving home.
Only 1% of agents’ websites have the ability to search for properties based on acreage.
It’s not surprising – although the big portals say their ‘text search’ facilities allow house hunters to find quirkier properties, Tomlinson say equestrian properties are after very specific features that many Rightmove listings, for example, might not even mention.
“If you put ‘stable’ into a text search on a portal then you’ll get all the phrases that include the word, not just properties that include one – for example ‘stable door’ or ‘stable conversion’.” he says.
“It’s the same for the word ‘acre’ – thousands of listings contain the word but they’re not equestrian properties.”
The portal is also very different to the big portals in another way. The maps that show a property’s location are overlayed with an OS map that shows all the local bridleways and unrestricted/restricted byway nearby, coded specially by Tomlinson and his team.
Social media links
His portal also enables listing agents to direct house hunters to their own social media channels be it Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, and provides links for each property showing local equestrian businesses be it feed stock providers or a saddler, taken from our business directory.
Given all this speciality, Tomlinson wants to provide a single specialist portal for this sector within his TracksForHacks app and is now inviting agents who have equestrian properties to list on his app/portal.
It charges on a pay per-listing basis as many agents don’t have such properties to market on a regular basis, he says.
“My experience is that some of the people dealing with these kinds of properties tend to be the kind who are not necessarily used to dealing with social media and digital technology like apps so I guess you could say we’re a more modern marketing service for that kind of property,” he adds.
Tomlinson says the buyers of these equestrian properties are now much more likely to be using apps like his or looking for properties online via social media as a younger generation moves up.
But during our interview he has yet to explain how he will attract the horsey-home buying public to his app.
“I am well aware that there are many property portals out there that exist because they exist, not because anyone uses them to search for a home,” he says.
“So we’ve built several features within the TracksForHacks app that are proving popular and useful among the equestrian community.
“This includes enabling riders to plan their hacks using our specially-coded maps, and a one-press ‘emergency button’ feature to summon help should they be injured during a ride.”
Riders can also track and record their rides, in a similar way runners and cyclists can do on Strava, for example, and the app alerts family and friends if they remain still or inactive for a prolonged period.
“It’s all about attracting and retaining people’s interest in the equestrian lifestyle on one app,” he adds. “And we’re offering agents a better way to access that community with their properties for sale.
“We already operate the largest Facebook group for those interested in equestrian property and land on the platform with over 45,00 members and we’ve already got fellow agents advertising their properties via that page.
Tomlinson says that although he agency RELD isn’t the biggest fish in the world of rural properties – it lists eight or so properties a month – “with our app, social media expertise and property knowledge we feel there’s a huge opportunity here for agents to better market their equestrian listings which, if you remember, are usually around the £1 million mark,” he says.
Agents who are interested should contact
TracksForHacks.com
or email [email protected]
FACTS ON THE HOOF
27 million
number of people interested in equestrian
pursuits in the UK.
5 million
number of households with an ex-rider
living within it.
1.8 million
number of regular riders.
374,000
number of horse-owning households.
874,000
estimated number of horses.
