“We want to give people advice as if we were giving our own mum advice about selling a house.”
That’s the aim of online estate agent Housesimple, its CEO Sam Mitchell says.
Earlier this month, Housesimple garnered attention for a rather attractive proposition - to sell properties in Yorkshire and the North West for free!
Mitchell explains: “A typical estate agent will probably charge you £3,000 to £5,000 to sell your house and other models have emerged that charge you the best part of £1,000 up front, whether or not your property sells.
“We’re the first estate agency to come along and say we can do everything but we’ll do it completely free, no catches.”
Housesimple was established more than a decade ago.
Its boss claims it was the 'original online agent' and in that time it has been through some changes as the market has evolved and other disruptors in the sector have moved in.
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“It has always been a distant number two to Purple Bricks, however, I joined the business 18 months ago from Rightmove and we’ve completely restructured it over the last year.
“We relaunched on January 1, so while we’ve got a heritage and we’ve been around for a long time, it’s really a completely new concept.”
The business’s no-fee offering is only “one half of the story”, Mitchell maintains.
“Whenever you look at these surveys, estate agents are generally one of the least trusted professions.
“When people have a valuation on their house it’s generally quite an unpalatable experience.
“You have some estate agents come round in their shiny suits, they come into your house and they play this game where they try and guess how much you think your house is worth and then they tell you a little bit more so that they win the business.
“It’s why estate agents have a bad reputation.”
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Mitchell hopes to "turn estate agency on its head".
“Our valuers aren’t in suits and because we don’t have a fee, it takes the heat of that conversation out of the equation, so we give honest advice about what’s the best way to sell your property.”
But, if Housesimple aren’t charging fees, where does its income stream come from?
Mitchell says they have made the offering feasible by “building several businesses”.
“We’ve looked at the whole chain of moving house from start to finish, and we’ve looked at all the different pain points across that journey and we’ve come up with business solutions to solve those.”
For example, the company has built a mortgage brokerage “from scratch” as well as a moving consultancy business, which they receive referral fees on.
“Every property that we bring onto the market generates between ten and 20 buyers.
“People that come to us can use that service whether or not they’re buying from us, so we hope lots of people that come to view our properties may end up using our financial services products.”
Mitchell says the “key” to the business model is “not to mandate anything”.
“You don’t have to use any of our services we just hope you choose to.”
Mitchell maintains that Housesimple not only wants to make the process of moving house cheap, they want it done better.
“We’ve built a tech platform that gives control to the vendor so they can understand exactly what’s going on with their property.
“We’re properly leveraging technology to empower our customers and I think that’s the thing that’s really going to make it flow.
"I genuinely can't see why this won't be the future of how people sell houses."
The lack of a bricks-and-mortar estate means the firm doesn't have huge overheads.
“We don’t have to carry the cost of 90 managers, 90 valuers, 200-odd negotiators, 300-odd cars, we can be significantly more efficient therefore we can pass those savings onto our customers.”
However, Mitchell says combining people with technology is important for the firm.
“We blend technology and people, we have people in the field that will come round and meet you and give you advice and talk you through the process, which I think is right giving it’s such a big transaction.
“It really is the best of both worlds. If you can have people giving you advice and you have access to tech, that really empowers you by giving you all the data you could possibly need.”
Mitchell says Housesimple are “looking at the most efficient way” of rolling out its offering across the 海角视频.
“We won’t move on from these regions too quickly because we want to make sure that we’re giving exceptional service. What we don’t want to do is grow too fast.
“We’re trying to grow at an organic steady pace so we can ensure we’re delivering the right levels of service for our customers.”