High profile hybrid estate agency shutters high street hubs

Agent & Homes has slammed the door shut on its high street operations after the hybrid estate agency decided it ‘simply wasn’t working’.

At the beginning of last year the agency announced plans to open a high street hub in London’s Ladbroke Grove to compliment its existing presence in Notting Hill as well as ambitions to open in another eight London locations.

At the time the idea was that where Agent & Homes had a cluster of its agents working, it would open a local hub to support them.

But the plan has not worked. Taking to LinkedIn, Agent & Homes Chief Executive Rollo Miles declared the sudden death of its high street experiment.

In a video on the business networking platform Miles says: “Agents & Homes is now five years old and when we set it up the idea was to be a platform to empower self-employed agents to work how they want and work where they want and work when they want, and to give them all the tools they need to compete with the high street.”

FEELING

Miles explains that having come from a high street background he always had a feeling that Agent & Homes might need a high street presence to compete.

“So let’s have some hubs on the high street so members of the public can see that these guys have a shop and credibility and win more instructions and recruit more agents,” he says.

But he adds: “After just under a year and a half of having these units it’s crystal clear to me that none of the above happened as a result of having these two shops.

“We didn’t recruit more agents; we didn’t win more instructions and at the end of the day they hindered us more than helped us because we had to man them.

We had to be there between nine to five, work on Saturdays!”

“We had to be there between nine to five, work on Saturdays – all the things that were against our philosophy which is to give agents total freedom and allow them to do what they do best which is to look after instructions and look after their clients and go for it.

The joy of being a start-up is that we can pivot – we can make fast decisions.”

“The joy of being a start-up is that we can pivot – we can make fast decisions. I could see they weren’t working so I shut them down. That is the future and that is what is great about our company is that we can make fast decisions that benefit everyone.

HELP

“Hand on heart, do estate agents shops help? They don’t. Do our self-employed agents benefit from them? No they don’t. Do we get more instructions off them? No we don’t.

“We’re going back to our roots which is simply providing a great service and great platform for our self-employed agents to work when they want, work how they want and work where they want – to give them total support to be able to leave the high street and set up on their own.”