November 2010
ESTATE AGENCY SURVEY 2010
General subject: How has the downturn in the property market since 2008 affected your business in terms of workforce, tools and advertising/marketing?
Name of business: Hunters Property Group
Your name and role: Kevin Hollinrake MD
Head Office location: York
Number of offices as at Sept 30, 2010: 17 offices, 31 Personal Agents – 48 in total
Number of offices at Sept 30, 2009: 15 offices, 10 Personal Agents – 25 in total
How does the way the company works now compare with 12 months ago?
Size of workforce? The size of our business has increased but the average staffing level per office has remained constant
Use of associates (as opposed to employees)? Yes, absolutely and we are growing our PA model rapidly but in conjunction with our office presence
Use of software (e.g. Vebra)? Reapit and CFP for property management
Have you imposed any major changes, such as additional services, in light of the downturn in the property market? Grown lettings heavily, rolled out our PA programme, focused on market share growth
What has been the reaction (from your company and clients) to HIPs being gone? Good news!
Use of advertising media: portal sites, newspapers, etc., specifically:
• Where do you prefer to list and why? Do you list on more than one site? Why?
Rightmove
DPG (Principally for Primelocation)
Zoopla (some of our PAs use this )
• Rightmove pushed through a listing price increase. What is your reaction?
Reasonable in the circumstances, given their dominance
• Are you developing the use of branding options offered on sites?
We have experimented with it but the feedback we got from our agents was lukewarm
• Are you using newspapers? How frequently? More or less frequently than in 2008? Are publishers raising prices? Any concerns regarding the use of print media?
Yes, but less and less. This seems to be the worst value on our price per lead analysis
• How do you intend to change your use of advertising media over the coming year?
Less newspaper ads, more direct mail and canvassing and increasing spend on online channels e.g. Google, Social Media etc.
Any other comments on the current economic situation and how it affects your business?
We are where we are and no amount of complaining is going to change that. We have remodelled our business to make good profits from half the normal level of transactions as we don’t feel it would be wise to expect any return to the long term trends in the foreseeable future. We feel that the current market offers good opportunities for pro-active agents who are willing to embrace the future.
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