The Home Stretch

With parts B and C of the Disclosure of Material Information regulation coming into effect late last year for sales and lettings agents across the UK, we caught up with Guy Welfare from National Trading Standards for some clarity on what this means moving forward. Iain McKenzie asks Guy questions such as, 'how should agents communicate these changes to buyers and sellers?' 'How are the portals preparing?' 'What is classed as material information?' Listen now to find out all this and more.

Almost 15 years ago Erica and Lewis Tandy were considering moving home to be near good local schools, in the process they discovered a gap in what estate agents could offer buyers. They began developing something that showed schools on a map, with information at a glance about their Ofsted report ratings and exam results. Today, Locrating is much more than just a map as Ben Sellers discovers...

On Friday, 22 March 2024, The Guild of Property Professionals hosted its highly anticipated annual Guild Conference and Awards at the QEII Centre in Westminster, London. Under the theme ‘Sharing Success,’ the full-day conference brought together innovative and passionate Guild Members alongside industry pioneers for an event exclusive to The Guild's network. Listen to Iain McKenzie, CEO of The Guild, and Holly Hibbett, PR and Social Exec for The Guild, look back on the day as well as hearing interviews from Members on their successes.

Anna Clare Harper, CEO at GreenResi.com and podcast host herself, joins Iain McKenzie this week to look at some of the challenges the Private Rental Sector and investors are facing with the race to net-zero by 2050 and other factors limiting supply. With 14% of emissions coming from homes, what impact have changes to EPC gradings in recent years had on the sector? Should housing really be the political football it is? Find out in this episode.

The first guest to join host Ben Sellers on The Home Stretch: Tech is Ian Preston. As Director at Greenhouse OS and Founder of Preston Baker, Ian has seen his fair share of innovation and transformation in property technology over the years. In this episode Ben and Ian discuss some of the key changes they have experienced as well as discovering some of the driving forces of Ian's many entrepreneurial endeavours.

With the Women in Estate Agency Conference fast approaching, we caught up with Liana Loporto Browne, Founder of the Women in Estate Agency Facebook Group and Owner at Loporto Browne Residential, to delve into some of the decisions that lead her to be the business person she is today. Listen to Liana tell Iain McKenzie about her career beginning on the island of Malta at 19 years old through to her current role as a trailblazing entrepreneur alongside her husband, Oliver.

We welcome Kevin Ellis to the podcast today to make an announcement on a new collaboration between The Guild and Land and New Homes Network for 2024 that Iain McKenzie has been excited to reveal to Members and the industry...

Join us for a new feature on The Home Stretch, as Ben Sellers takes to the microphone on the first Friday of each month to offer us an insight into the world of technology all while making it relevant to the day to day running of your estate and letting agency business. For the first episode in the series, Ben introduces Canva, a creative tool which is making use of AI to enhance social media posts in just a few clicks.

On this episode of The Home Stretch, Iain McKenzie is joined by Malcolm Prescott, Managing Director, and Karlie Baker-Kidwell, Digital and marketing manager of Webbers Estate Agents to celebrate 100 years in business. Words such as trail-blazer and pace-maker have often been used to describe Webbers during the past century and today we delve into some of the reasons Malcolm believes the agency has stood the test of time.

With the first two weeks of 2024 seemingly offering a more positive outlook for the property market, we asked data-analyst, Anthony Codling, and stat-mad, Chris Watkin, to join us on the podcast to look at the figures behind the sentiment. Listen as Anthony provides insight on how 2023 ended and his predictions for the rest of this year, and Chris offers his advice to agents operating in the current climate.

In the the first episode of 2024 in The Home Stretch podcast, Iain McKenzie is joined by Annabel Goulden, Head of KnowYourMarket, to dive into the world of mystery shopping and its transformative impact on the property sector. They look at the behind-the-scenes operations of KnowYourMarket and the importance of using mystery shopping results not just for assessment but as a catalyst for implementing positive change and, ultimately, fostering growth within companies.

Join Iain McKenzie and Chris Watkin on the final episode of 2023 as they look at the real stats behind the Boxing Day Bounce as they help agents to understand whether to get on board with the marketing ploy or not. They also look into transactional data and house price figures for 2023 as well as looking to the future to predict what 2024 might look like for the property market.

In the latest episode of The Home Stretch podcast, Ben Madden, Director at Fine & Country Chiswick, Fulham and Teddington, joined Iain McKenzie, to discuss the steps his team are taking to become ‘the number-one estate on the planet’ from improving culture, to being more proactive day-to-day.

Season three of The Home Stretch podcast kicks off with a bang as Tim Bannister, Director of Property Science and Innovation at Rightmove, reveals the latest data for the UK property market after a somewhat subdued August. Listen now to hear which factors Tim feels has impacted the market over the past few months and why the data shows postive developments on the horizon.

Nicola Broomham believes that estate agency has become a marketing industry over a sales industry in recent years and her experience in recruitment has shown her that candidates are chosing to work for agencies whose value mirror that of their own. Listen to her recent conversation with Iain McKenzie on The Home Stretch to find out how it all started for Nicola, and why she is striving to improve the industry for the next generation of estate agents.

Ian Crampton, Director at Ferndown Estates in Birmingham, opened his estate agency 20-years ago in 2003 with his father, John. Since then they have gone on to see many changing markets and have even scooped some awards along the way, including Gold for the Letting Agent (Landlord) in West Midlands at The ESTAS 2023 and Gold for Sales in The Guild Awards 2023. As the exclusively chosen Guild Member in Marston Green, Ian spoke to Iain McKenzie about his experiences in the area as well as introudicing the inaugural Sanjay Cup Golf Tournament.

As a Director at deverellsmith, a spokesperson for the industry and the Chair of Women in Residential Property, Nicola Broomham has a lot in her diary! Iain McKenzie caught up with Nicola recently to discuss how her role in Women in Residential Property is helping her to make improvements within the industry through regional representatives and collaborative thinking.

With AI dominating the tech space headlines, Iain McKenzie invited Ben Sellers, Co-Founder at Digital Marketing specialists, Starberry, on to The Home Stretch podcast to delve deeper into 'machine learning'. Listen as Ben helps us to understand which tools agents can utilise day-to-day in order to become more efficient and keep up with the fast-moving 'AI train'.

On this week's episode of The Home Stretch podcast, Compliance Officer for The Guild of Property Professionals, Paul Offley speaks to Oliver Wharmby, Client Director at Mint Insurance Brokers about the rise in Professional Indemnity insurance claims, as well as the cyber security risks estate and lettings agents face.

With Housing Ministers in the UK churning every few months of late, we invited Ben Beadle, Chief Executive of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), back onto another episode of The Home Stretch podcast to discuss what these constant changes mean for the Private Residential Sector. In his opening remarks Iain McKenzie asks Beadle when he thinks the housing market will be given the legitimate leadership it deserves from government, rather than simply being used as a pawn to advance political agenda, listen to them discuss...

Proud Guild Member and Branch Manager at Sanderson James Estate Agents, Dougie McCallum joins Iain McKenzie this week to discuss Manchester's growing economy. With rents increasing as much as 20%, the population increasing by 10% and house prices managing to stay bouyant in the area, Dougie shares some of his observations as well as how his team differentiate in a saturated sales and lettings market.

Iain McKenzie is joined by Steve Ryan, Sales Director for Websites and SEO at nurtur.tech, this week to discuss the importance of an estate agency’s website. Steve tells us that an agent’s website is as important as their office was before the digital evolution... so, what is the difference between a good website and a great website?

In the first interview since iamproperty announced their new private equity partner, Perwyn, co-Founder of iamproperty, Jamie Cooke, joined Iain McKenzie to discuss the past innovations and future development of the business. He also discusses the difference between traditional auction and the modern method of auction, as well as helping agents to understand why having auctions in their toolbox could be the difference between winning and losing an instruction.

iamproperty’s Online Auction Index is a market-leading quarterly focus on the UK’s growing Modern Method of Auction market. On behalf of their Partner Agents across the UK, iamproperty have seen phenomenal growth and sold over 2,500 properties in Q3. View the Q3 Online Auction Index for an overview of their highest-selling quarter to date, as well as Jamie’s predictions for the quarter ahead >> https://iamproperty.com/auction-index/q3-2023-online-auction-index/

In the latest episode of season three of The Home Stretch podcast CEO of The Guild of Property Professionals, Iain McKenzie, speaks to Tom Bill, Head of UK Residential Research at Knight Frank, to understand the latest developments for the sales and lettings market in London and the upper quartile, as well as the wider UK residential market. With Bill and his team producing a monthly house price index for the UK residential market, McKenzie was eager to ask if 2023 had panned out as expected...

Iain McKenzie is joined once again by Tim Bannister, Director of Property Science and Innovation at Rightmove for a special bonus episode as they look at the data behind price reductions. Rightmove's September HPI data shows that over 36% of properties currently for sale have had a price reduction, with an average reduction equating to £22,700 nationally. Listen to Tim and Iain discuss what the best pricing strategy is in today's market and how to demonstrate this through data to your sellers.

Award-winning estate agent from the French Riviera, Alice Watson-Smith, joins Iain McKenzie for this week's episode to discuss how the buying and selling process in France differs to in the UK including legislation and regulation differences as well as time-scales and motivation to move. Listen to Alice explain how she got to the stage in her career where she believes whole-heartedly that the service and presentation her team provides is worth their 6% average fee.

After 30 fantastic episodes with some of the industries most respected influencers joining Iain and Holly throughout the second series of The Home Stretch Podcast, we looked back on some of our favourite episodes from the last five months of recording. A huge thank you to all of our guests including; Grainne Gilmore, Simon Whale, Kevin Ellis, Russell Humphrey, Chris Millington, Russell Humphrey, Nathan Emmerson, Verona Frankish, Ben Beadle, Rob Hailstone, Savvas Savouri, Elaine Penhaul, Bryan Mansell, Richard Combellack, Peter Knight, Peter Brodnicki and Anthony Codling. As well as all the #ProudGuildMembers who have contributed.

In the final episode of the second season of The Home Stretch podcast, Iain McKenzie is joined by property market analyst and Head of European Housing and Building Materials at the Royal Bank of Canada, Anthony Codling, to discuss what has been unfolding within the market during the second quarter of the year. In previous episodes Codling had made several predictions regarding what he thought we would see in the property market during 2023, so is the market playing the game and reacting as predicted?

Don't panic! That is the advice from Mortgage Advice Bureau. Listen to Peter Brodnicki, Chief Executive at MAB, discuss the changing landscape of mortgages in the current property market as he tells Iain McKenzie why it is important consumers understand the role of a broker and that agents articulate that to their buyers.

After Peter spoke to us previously about his early years in agency and the experiences that shaped him, he joins us again on the latest episode to divulge in what came next for the successful director and how the EA Masters and Agents Giving were established some 20 years ago both with the aim of supporting the industry through recognition and philanthropy. Find out more about Property Academy at propertyacademy.co.uk.

Peter Knight started his career as a negotiator in 1979 and worked his way up through the ranks, working as sales manager at Barratt Homes and eventually becoming director at Jackson Property Services. In the present day, as founder of Property Academy, Best Estate Agent Guide and EA Masters, Peter comments that his purpose is to inspire people to fulfil their potential. Listen to Peter and Iain discuss his experiences in over 40 years in agency and understand the key traits needed to be successful.

A recent report from Nationwide suggests that Northern Ireland is the only country in the UK to see an increase in house prices in the past 12-months. We invited Julie McCrory, Director at Kingham Property Specialists in Lurgan near Belfast, on to The Home Stretch podcast to discuss how a changing market doesn't always have to mean a change of tactics, and how traditional lead nurturing is still key to her business 17 years since opening.

The nurtur eco-system, a series of integrations revolutionising the property industry, offers smart prop-tech and innovative thinking for estate and letting agents. We invited Richard Combellack, Chief Commercial Officer at nurtur.tech on to The Home Stretch podcast this week to tell us the benefits of managing leads from the very beginning of the customer journey, all the way through to conversion, and beyond, joining the dots up and connecting systems as it goes. Find out more or get in touch with Richard and the team at: www.nurtur.tech.

Alex Pelosi-Buchanan, Sales Manager at award-winning estate agency Archer & Co, specialises in selling property throughout Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire. Iain invited Alex onto the podcast this week to get to know the man behind the property tours and market update videos and to understand the Welsh property market compared with 'across the water'. We finish up by asking Alex how his team justify an average fee of 1.5% by proving the value of their service.

Bryan Mansell is the CEO and Co-Founder Gazeal and is considered an expert in the UK property market. Not only does he provide consultancy services along with Sarah Edmundson in the form of Allstars Coaching, he also strives towards new and innovative ways to help improve the way people buy and sell property. Listen to Bryan and Iain discuss his latest technology, Gazeal.

Steven Wayne launched Benjamin Stevens Estate Agents in January 2004 aged just 22. We invited him to speak with Iain McKenzie for this weeks episode to discuss some of his keys to success in business, from working hard, being honest, planning your day and not worrying about things you cannot control. Hear Steve let us in on his strategy for listing and his thoughts on EXP and the self-employed model.

Rob Hailstone, Chief Executive of conveyancing network The Bold Legal Group, is a huge advocate for improving the, often fractious, relationship between agents and conveyancers. Listen to his bonus episode with Iain McKenzie to understand how they used to work together in the early 'HIPs era'.

Elaine is an award-winning businesswoman, entrepreneur and and the author of 'Sell High, Sell Fast - how to sell your home for the best possible price in the quickest possible time', the first UK book to speak directly to vendors about how to maximise a home sale. We asked her to join us on this week's episode of The Home Stretch to understand how property staging increases the value of a property.

Dr Savvas Savouri, Chief Economist for Toscafund Asset Management, joins Iain again for The Home Stretch podcast this week to challenge our views on Brexit.

The Building Safety Act makes 'ground-breaking reforms' to give residents and homeowners more rights, powers, and protections in a bid to make homes across the UK safer. Much of the Act is unclear and many of the regulations ill-communicated, so we invited Rob Hailstone, founder of Bold Legal Group and conveyancing expert on to The Home Stretch podcast to try and understand the Government's reform. Find out more here at www.gov.uk/guidance/the-building-safety-act.

Dr Savvas Savouri, Chief Economist for Toscafund Asset Management, tells Iain that, contrary to many predictions, the UK economy was never going to go into a recession. He also says that sectors such as the housing market are still viewed with the same metrics as they were in the 80s, however, much has changed since then, giving us inaccurate GDP data... listen to this weeks episode find out what is really going on in the UK economy.

Welcome to our 50th episode! Perry Power decided he wanted to be an estate agent at the age of 12 and began working in the property industry at 15 years old. 21-years later, he has managed a Fine & Country office, worked in some of the largest estate agencies in the country, had four children, opened his own agency - Power Bespoke, became a motivational speaker and even started a self-employed model. Perry joined Iain McKenzie recently on The Home Stretch podcast to discuss his routines and beliefs which support his mission to become 'the world's best negotiator' and consistently achieve a 2% fee.

After the recent news of the collapse of a well-known property management firm, the issue of whether client funds are held in an electronic money institution (EMI) or a bank, is a hot industry topic. On this week's episode, Iain McKenzie spoke to Matthew Gibbard from LettsPay to understand what these changes to client fund management means for landlords and letting agents and how prop tech is assisting in protecting consumers' monies. Get a demo at lettspay.co.uk.

Ben Beadle, Chief executive at NRLA (National Residential Landlord Association), joined Iain McKenzie this week to give his frank and honest view on the state of the UK's housing market, in particular with regards to the lettings market. NRLA supports over 100,000 Landlords and Ben recently met with Michael Gove to discuss everything from The Renters Reform Bill to the Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) sector and even anti-social behaviour, listen to this episode to hear what the former Housing Minister had to say.

On 2nd March 2023, the Women in Estate Agency group held their inaugural conference at the Cavendish Conference Centre in London. The sold out event welcomed more than 250 men and women from across the property industry. Verona Frankish, CEO of Zoopla and member of The Women in Estate Agency group worked alongside Liana Loporto-Browne, Clare Hughes, Sarah Edmundson, Lucy Noonan, Clare Yates, Kirsty Franks and Sarah Davies to put on an event to remember so we asked her to tell us more about the day, and their plans for 2024 and beyond.

Property market analyst and CEO of Twindig, Anthony Codling, makes his return to The Home Stretch podcast for his 2023 debut this week. He tells us his thoughts on the property market in the first quarter of 2023 after we ended the year with over 1.2 million property transactions occurring during 2022. Iain McKenzie believes that the only aspect he would be concerned about, as an estate agent, is the size of the pie in his area of operation, essentially the transactional volume in his region. Listen to Anthony's response...

This week Iain McKenzie catches up Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, a membership body for the property industry which is working to raise standards, increase regulation and provide support for the property industry in a mission similar to that of The Guild. Listen to Nathan tell us his opinions on ROPA, our revolving door or Housing Ministers and how to educate consumers on the importance of choosing an agent who is part of a network such as The Guild or Propertymark.

Verona Frankish, CEO of Yopa joins Iain McKenzie on The Home Stretch Podcast this week, as he delves into the world of hybrid estate agencies and all the challenges and successes this model presents. Verona speaks about her first 12-months as CEO at Yopa, as well as discussing her time at Purplebricks and the future of the Yopa model. She also tells Holly how important it is to build a community around you in business.

Russell is back for a bonus episode to tell us his story into recruitment and to discuss The Humphrey Group's award-winning customer service, which culminated in the team becoming twice decorated at The ESTAS in 2022. 

Chris Millington, Director of Building and Construction Research at investment bank numis, joins Iain for this week's episode to look at the housing market from an investor and house builder perspective. Chris is optimistic about the market for the remainder of 2023, he tells Iain why he cannot see the UK facing a crash. Iain also asks about the topic-du-jour, Purplebricks... listen to Chris' view on the future of the online agency.