What’s a home-based estate agency franchise?

Mark Meyer writes:

The pandemic has accelerated the trend commonly described as ‘the death of the high street’. With it, we’re also seeing the decline of the traditional estate agency business model. 

However, with change comes opportunity and in recent years technological advances have opened up the property market to make it easier to target buyers from across the UK online via popular sites like Zoopla and Rightmove. As a result, there has been a growth in purely online estate agencies.

For those looking for a franchise opportunity within the property sector, home-based estate agencies offer an alternative and a more viable franchised business.

A home-based estate agency business begins without a high street location, but still has a local presence through connections and targeted local reputation marketing. It could be seen as the ‘best of both worlds’, where overheads can be kept low as there is no premises and franchised agents work from home, taking advantage of tech to market properties widely to prospective buyers.

Because cost savings can be passed onto clients and local knowledge can help sell properties fast, this new model is proving particularly popular for consumers and franchisee alike.

The home-based agency can easily expand by taking on more self-employed agents as it grows within its territory or by building the business into a local hub office.

For franchisees, becoming an estate agent can offer a great work-life balance. 

Although it’s important to be responsive to all enquiries, the job can easily fit around family commitments. By selecting an experienced franchisor with a good reputation and training programme, there’s no need to be experienced in the sector either. We have trained hairdressers and firefighters to become successful estate agent franchisees!

The key skills you’ll need are energy and the ability to communicate and build relationships. Attention to detail plus a bit of drive and determination go a long way too.

A further advantage of working in the property market it that generally, whatever happens in the economy, the housing sector remains stable. After all, everyone needs somewhere to live and at some point we all need to move house.

Even during the challenges of the past year, house prices have risen between 6-10 per cent. This means there’s a huge opportunity to target and satisfy consumers who are looking for a better experience for their property transactions than retail estate agents or purely online services can offer.

Mark Meyer is principal of Meyers Estate Agents.