Watch out Savills! Hybrid set up by former employees expanding in London
The Neg talks to House co-founder Andrew Giller about his unusual but expanding London and Home Counties estate agency.
Many people assume Purplebricks has been the trailblazer of the alternative estate agency model. But they’d be wrong.
House, founded by agents Andrew Giller and David Carter five years ago, is an equally innovative and new way of selling and renting homes that, its founders claim, is unique.
The estate agency has 17 partners covering southwest London, Surrey, Sussex, Kent and Hampshire with plans to expand into central London by the end of this year.
“It is by invitation, you can’t just buy in like a franchise, and we encourage our partners to grow. The brand is worth more as collective, rather than just a bunch of individuals,” says Giller (main pic, left).
He and Carter left secure jobs at Savills because, they say, they could see where the industry was going.
After the financial crash in 2008 agents with big HQs and fixed costs have had to sell more homes in a competitive market with lower transaction volumes to keep growing.
“By stripping out large central costs and head offices, we believed we could offer our clients a better service where the person you meet is the person you deal with, and be more profitable as a business,” says Giller.
Its network, which is called the House Partnership, splits commission with its hybrid-working agents in return for a no up-front fee ‘plug and play’ marketing, IT and support package.
“A lot of estate agents like the office environment and the ability to work with colleagues – it’s a large part of any company’s culture,” says Giller.
“Also, management want to see people in the expensive high street shops.
“That’s why we offer our partners the opportunity of working from home or coming into one of our many pods.
“IT has enabled us to be contacted on a 24-hour basis, however we are building a culture of partners that look after each other. For example, we cover each other’s properties when partners are on holiday, so even as a self-employed agent, you know that your clients are being looked after whilst you’re away – this differentiates us from self-employed franchise models.
Read more about other agents setting up hybrid agencies.
