Digital Offers, Human Value: Phil Farrell on the Future of Estate Agency

This week on The Viking Chats, I’m joined by Phil Farrell of Offr - former agent, industry operator, and now one of the most thoughtful voices in the PropTech space.

And this isn’t a fluffy “tech will save the world” conversation.

It’s a frank, honest and occasionally uncomfortable deep dive into where estate agents truly add value… and where we absolutely don’t.

Phil spent over two decades in agency before moving into tech. He’s negotiated, valued, built teams and led businesses. Which means when he talks about digitising the offer process, front-loading transactions and reducing friction, he’s not guessing - he’s speaking from experience.

We cover:

• Why the UK sales process is still painfully slow - and why that can’t continue
• The stat that 42% of offers are made outside business hours (and what that tells us about consumer behaviour)
• Why “people buy from people” is both true… and wildly misunderstood
• The difference between influencing a transaction and simply being part of the admin
• Why agents must understand exactly where they add value - before tech forces the question

Phil makes a powerful 80/20 argument: 80% of a transaction is inefficient administration and poor communication. The remaining 20% - negotiation, reassurance, emotional intelligence - is where the real human value lies.

And here’s the challenge:

If technology removes the 80%… what happens to agents who can’t articulate the 20%?

We also explore:

• Government’s role in modernising property transactions
• Why front-loading property information is inevitable
• Whether the future high street branch even matters
• Why agents misunderstand long-term relationships with buyers
• And the uncomfortable truth about being “a cog in the process” versus influencing the outcome

This episode isn’t anti-agent. Quite the opposite.

It’s about protecting the future of agency by being brutally honest about where we genuinely make a difference - and where we’re simply repeating processes that tech could handle better, faster and more reliably.

There’s healthy disagreement. There’s humour. There’s a deep respect for the human side of property. But there’s also a clear message:

Digitisation doesn’t remove the agent. It exposes the agent.

And the ones who thrive will be those who lean into influence, expertise and relationship - not paperwork and phone-chasing.

If you care about the future of estate agency, if you’re wrestling with PropTech decisions, or if you’ve ever wondered whether we’re defending tradition out of comfort rather than logic - this one’s essential listening.

🎧 Tune in now to The Viking Chats.

Because the future of agency won’t be decided by tech alone - it will be decided by agents who understand exactly where they matter most.

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the latest episode of the Viking Chats podcast. I'm delighted to be joined today by Philip Farrell of Offer. That's O double FR. Philip, thanks for joining me. Delighted to be here. Now, Philip, you and I have known each other for quite a few years. I think we met, I think originally kind of on the prop tech scene, kind of, I think maybe at one of the prop tech, kind of, the UK prop tech association or that type of thing or one of the annual events, yeah. And obviously we've known each other, we see each other at pretty much all the industry conferences and events and... We're feeding out at the same trough. Well, we are, right? We put different products and different offerings, etc. Exactly. We're there, we understand the marketplace. Obviously, I was, and still am, an agent. You kind of come from a family that was very tightly knit into property. You were an agent yourself. I was an agent for... So my background is, you don't get any awards for knowing I'm from Ireland, but I've been active here in the UK for the last five or six years and I was around a family business for 22 or 23 years as an agent and then I was CEO of a nationwide group of estate agents in Ireland and I was a property columnist. So I've always been involved in property and one of the things that stood to me even though I'm in the prop tech space now is that an agent really like it is that I still think like an agent and the guys would often say to me and say are you defending the agents again or whatever it's just and my own brother there is still an agent or whatever. - No, I think agents like to hear this 'cause they get the fact that we're not trying to find a problem that doesn't exist. We're not naive or clueless about the compliance and operations an agency needs to go through 'cause we've all seen those products that come from a very legitimate place. Someone goes out there has a really crappy experience making an offer on a property or leaving a rental property or whatever out and they go, "Oh, this is horrible. This is broken. I'm going to sold it." But they do it in this micro bubble of the consumer experience. And there is no consideration or understanding of the framework that as agents we need to adhere to be that regulatory compliance and AML regs and whatever else. And then just the operational realities of running a business and the checks and balances that need to be done. So I think what's really The interesting is there's more and more products now with people like ourselves who have a background in agency or are still in agency and we get it. You had Kai Wheatley who built ARIA. He was one of the founders of Keaton's that he's now exited, but ARIA got acquired by Homeflow. You obviously got John Paul who's done Prospector Pro. You've obviously got, whilst Heather and her brother aren't directly agents, they come from a family of estate agents. they were brought up around that. There are others in this space, but I think what's really interesting is we get it, we get the day job. So I think when we put our products in front of agents, there is that thing of like, "Oh, you actually know what you're talking about." It's the funny little things I find that we do in the platform that actually the ones that go, "Oh, that's really good. Yeah, because, oh, we have that problem." And sometimes too, what happens is you have, you know, you could have the best tech in the world. And from a tech developer's perspective, it is, they're saying to the market, "Look, this is what it does and this is what you need." But from the agent's perspective, that communication, that connection is not there and they, it's not relatable. And the sense that they say, "No, no, well actually, that's not what the problem is. The problem is this over here." So when we started in Ireland six, seven years ago, And when I left the industry in 2010, 2011, my view was, and just for people who are watching here today, the process of buying selling property in the UK is more or less the exact same. Common law comes from the same illegal system, et cetera, et cetera. So there's very, very little difference. But ultimately, how we have transacted, primarily in the private treaty or conditional sales space, it just ultimately can't go on because it's paper heavy, it's time- - Well, I think today, we've literally had a stat out today. Now, obviously this would be published a few weeks after we're actually having the chat, but there was a stat today, I think LRG have put out stat saying that 34% of, so one in three of all sales that fell through last year, were people just getting cold feet. So nothing on valuation, home condition survey. It's interesting when you say people getting cold feet. That can be also that they lose confidence in the process and they become disheartened and they become frustrated and they become stressed, etc. So it's a combination of it and all of these changes there are... Cold feet exasperated by... And look, I don't think the challenges that the sales market are the overall problems, aren't a mystery to anyone, right? And for those of us working in the industry, I mean, even myself on lettings, there's a very acute realisation that the average sale time in my time in agency has gone from about 10 weeks to like 26 weeks. Correct. I mean, that is insane. In a generation where everything through tech is fundamentally getting easier, faster, streamlined, more reliable, more transparent, sales has kind of unfortunately bucked that trend and kind of gone the opposite way. And it lags, there's no doubt about it. This change though is being driven by consumers. So as you are aware from our perspective, we're in the digital space whereby we facilitate agents to conduct and facilitate transactions through a button, a white label button on their website and buyers come in and register, place offers, etc. interesting stat. Since we launched six years ago, we've had 180,000 offers through the platform. Wow. And 42% of those have been out of business hours. Interesting. Now that's the consumer saying, I will do business with you when it suits me. On my terms. Okay. And ultimately, and the amount of transactions that are taking place in the middle of the night in relation to people coming off shift. - And look, when you think about it, a massive transaction buying a house, when you think about it, that makes sense, right? Because who's got the time to think about that whilst you're juggling jobs and kids and whatever else you're juggling on your Monday to Friday? Saturdays, some agents either aren't open or you tend to typically have just like on the roadnecks, there's little office structure for most agencies on a weekend. - Correct, support network's not there yet. - Logic dictates that whether you're sitting down to discuss it with a partner, or maybe you're getting help from a parent or whatever, it's going to be in the evening where you sit down, you hash it out, right? Is this property right for us? Are we going to make an offer? What offer are we going to make? And let's do it. And they wanted to be more transparent. So, you know, you're starting to see it in the UK. So what we do has now become mainstream in the Republic of Ireland. And the same will happen. So what you're starting to see in the UK is the demand for buyer and seller front loading products for buyers can log in and see where they're at, where sellers can log in and see 24/7 where their property is at. And you're going to see a lot more of that coming down the track in the next couple of years. There's no doubt about it. And I believe in five years time, whether somebody's using offer or whatever other technology is out there, I think 90% of sale transactions. I've always said that the letting space is seems to be because of the greater volumes involved seems to be a little bit ahead of the sales. I mean, it's very quick. I mean, we've still got a way to go in terms of, I think it's really interesting. I think I'm right in saying this. I think it's Estonia, which has a really cool system. So in Estonia, they're very advanced in their tech business. They've got these incredible digital IDs that everyone has. Now, there's an almost animosity in this country to people having IDs or digital IDs. I don't really understand why. - If they feel threatened by it, I think, or let's... - But it tracks over there, it tracks everything. You've got your credit score on it, any financial agreement to track on that. And so, literally in Estonia, you can go and see a flat and go, "I like it, I wanna take it." And you go back to the agent's office and you slot your card into their card reader and literally within seconds, they're like, "Cool, you can take the flat, "here's your financial agreement." And I think in time we will get to that. It might not be government digital IDs, but with digital banks, you and I were talking earlier about Revolut and Starling and kind of how they've transformed the banking space. And I think that will continue to evolve. So you will have these kind of digital-- - I think no matter what area you're in, whether it's sales, whether it's lettings, whether it's banking, if you're making the experience simpler and easier for the consumer, the rest is obvious. They will stick with you and they say, "If you can make this less hassle for me." Because to a lesser extent with lettings, but with sales, this is the second most stressful process you'll go through is buying and selling property. And that really, and the UK and Ireland are probably one of the worst geographical locations in the world for this because it is so-- - I don't think there's a country that comes close to the length of time our sales take, the amount of full throughs. I mean, it's been really interesting. I recently sold our family home in Manorca, Spain. You know, and that is a fascinating process. I mean, my God, agents over here would love that process. You exchange contracts within a week of an offer being agreed. So, you know, it took us a while to find the buyer, but when the buyer came along, we had the offer. - Well, you have the independent liar who creates the-- - We had the agent. We had obviously our lawyer in place. We had the agent retained at 5% plus EVA, which is pretty much the same as that, so 6% of the transaction. How much would you like to get paid 6% for a sale? Especially when you hear how little the agent had to do once the offer was in. We agreed the offer. I can't remember if it was the agent or the solicitor that verified funds, but we obviously verified that they had the funds in place to think they were doing about 60% on a mortgage and the rest cash. And that was it. - Was it long on the market? - So it was a while on the market 'cause it's not the most active in markets. - That's the other side. - My dad doesn't own a coastal property, like your typical holiday maker property. - But even you mentioned there, and it's like I'm defending the market in Spain, which I'm not, but just people often talk about, you know, it's 5%, et cetera, et cetera, and it would be 1% say in London. However, it's multi-listed, so it could be with 50 different agents. We put on with five agents. Now, I wouldn't typically advocate that. I would typically, with any client, advise two or three. The reason we went so broad is we were actually selling it for my father's health. He needed medical care. And so, you know, and we've been in, we've been in, we've had a connection to Minorka my entire life. So 40, blah, blah, blah years. We know a lot of agents out there. So we had literally people clamoring to help my dad sell the house. But what we were very adamant about, half of those agents offered us to massively reduce the fee. From the 5%? From the 5% and I declined it because I said, I don't like great, you as an individual know me and my dad and you want to look after us. The 30 people who work for you don't. They don't know who we are. They don't really care, let's be honest. And so if they are presented with two 350 grand homes and they get paid 3% on one and 5% on the other, where are they pushing the buyer? So I think coming into it, I came into it with that agent mindset. We also had buyers approach us directly and go, we know you're paying your agents roughly this, so we'd like to go direct, but discount that from the fee to which we were like, We're still getting the same amount of money and we're having to do all the work. But again, I'm not a Spanish property aficionado. So I was like, no, you want the house, you paid the price, and you go through the age. And of course they have the notarial system there from a legal perspective, which is different to what, so it tends to be more streamlined there. But we literally, we exchange contracts within seven days of accepting the offer with completion set for like two weeks later. And they did reach out to us in that period and asked to just extend it by a few days because of logistics and things. Now we were well within our right to go, nope. And the other fascinating thing in Spain, when you exchange contracts, the buyer gives 10% direct to the seller. It doesn't even get held by solicitors in escrow. That was the thing I found fascinating. That 35 grand that we got as a deposit went straight into my dad's personal bank account. And that was fascinating again, because some of the costs involved with offloading the property, blah, blah, blah. Like for some clients, you'd have that problem of, if things are tight, like, oh my God, how am I gonna pay for this, that and the other? You've got that 35 grand there, like straight away. You'd be like, cool, I'll pay for this, I'll pay for that notary, I'll pay for this search, whatever it is. But my God, it was such a fascinating experience because industry service wise, I mean, agency in Spain, I feel, is where agency in the UK, from a service level, was about 20 years ago. - Interesting. - Marketing poor. Like the marketing that the agents put together between all of them, if my dad's property was shocking, to the point where I flew out. That's why I'm surprised. I literally flat suspected. I thought you were saying the opposite. No, no, you're absolutely right. They're about 20 years behind us in terms of how they treat clients. Right. Websites are basic software. They don't use software out there. Very few and far between. The quality of marketing is generally very poor. Like I said, it's where we were 20 years ago. People taking photos on their smartphones. Well, but also think about it. If you're an agent and in a way it's not surprising. If you're an agent and you're saying to yourself, okay, I can get 5% or 4% fee here, but I have a 1 in 7 chance of securing that because I'm competing with six other. You're not as committed. You're not as bought in. And that's where the difference... See, I find that a facet because my mindset is the opposite. My mindset is if I'm going to be 1 in 7, I'm going to make sure that 1 in 2 people are contacting us because our properties look better. That's very interesting. - Information's greater. Like, why do you want to homogenize yourself and your listing look like every other agent's listing with mediocre to crappy photos, half the information you need to make an informed decision, really poor comms out the back, that was the other thing. Communication with us as clients was shocking. Like, updates. Asking for an update, oh, I've got nothing to tell you. Cool, that is an update. Like, you know, I would reach out to them once a month and be like, "Cool, guys, what's happened the last month?" Or, you know, if we had an offer, we'd tell you. It's like, "Cool, I'd kind of figured that out, "but how many people have you spoken to? "What are you seeing in the office? "Have you sold similar properties? "Is this market dead right now?" You don't have to, it doesn't have to be updates about my particular property. If you tell me what's happening in the market as a whole, then that kind of informs me of, "Cool, okay, "well, our property's doing what the market's doing and that's fine. Everyone's quiet. We're quiet. What you want to know as a client is that the market isn't booming and for some reason you're sat there with nobody coming through the door. Is it a case that the market isn't booming or you've overshot the market price wise, etc. You need guidance from... We ended up having to be quite tough with them. I ended up being like, "Look, guys, stop filtering what you're telling me. I don't need you to... - Give it to me straight. - To consider my emotions. Like, then I was like, the nice thing to this is, yes, this is very personal. It's where my dad lived for many years and it is a family property. I was like, right now, this is a hindrance between my dad and the care he needs. So yes, there's an emotional attachment. - But you have an end goal. - But also, you guys know I'm an agent. So come at me, tell me what it is. And literally, like having pushed that, One of them kind of gave me this slightly sheepish call. And it was like, Christian and Simon, can we have a bit of a chat about the house? And I was like, thank Christ. - Communication. - Yes, yes, we can talk about the house. And he was like, now don't take this personally. And I'm like, Simon, shut the fuck up and give it to me straight. I'm like, can you, like, you don't need to mind your peas and queues. And he was like, right, cards on the table. 'Cause also my dad's house was part art gallery. He was like, the art gallery thing is really weird. He was like, people walk in expecting to walk into a house. And he's like, even though it's in the marketing, they walk into an art gallery. He's like, it's juxtaposed. I was like, cool. Literally what I said to my dad when we were talking about marketing it. I was like, great that you agree. We'll tackle that. And then the rest of the house, you know, there's so much stuff. And there's so much family and photos. And he's like, you go into every room and there's stuff personalized everywhere. He was like, the best thing you can do is strip it right back. - Declutter. - Keep a few items, go a bit minimalist. - Less is more. - And literally, I was like, Simon, thank you so much. I think I flew out to Minorka, like literally I booked a two or three night stay in Minorka, the house was on the market, no one's living there. I basically slept on the floor of the house, so I could go. And I went in there and literally in three days, I did probably 20 trips to the dump. Yeah. You know, ripped out the gallery, blah, blah, blah, reshot the whole property myself, video, photos, everything, got back to the UK, gave them all a media pack of, right, this is how it now looks, this is what you must update your marketing with, and from there, we got the market activity. And from there, we moved very quickly to offers. I think, you know, we'd had three months with no offers, and then we had an offer within a week, and within a month, we'd got the offer that we wanted. So it was a pleasant experience, but just going back to something you said earlier about, you know, we talk about the changes that are coming and tech and in five years time that most tech will be, or most property transactions will be in a digital manner managed by an agent. What is clear though is that this change while there is a will from the consumer and there is a, the industry will follow if it has to, if it feels it needs to, ultimately this has to be driven by government. So I've always said, yeah, and I can see the big sigh coming into you there and I wonder when you mentioned that. The problem is is that you can have the stick approach and you can have the carrot approach and if it's the stick approach and it has to be done, no, flipside, if it's the carrot approach it may not be done. So the holy grail for property transactions I've always said is that a contract for sale must be available from the outset irrespective of property type or sale type. And ultimately, because the idea of engaging in a transaction with you and I'm buying a house from you and in four months time, you suddenly point out to me there's a problem with the boundary at the end of the garden and therefore I have to step away. This should be, it all should be front loaded and that's what's happening as we are now. You shouldn't be allowed to go to market without all key property information being made for. And the material information, that's all going - No, you might need something updated. You might, the search may become invalid. - Yeah, yeah. - If you're buying a flat, the service charge accounts may need updating. - Of course. - But you can still have, you know, here are the last three years service charge accounts up until... - Yes, a reasonable date. - January this year. - Correct. - Now, you end up agreeing an offer in May. Yes, you need to know the last four months are up to date. But that's very simple. That's a request to the Block Management Company. Can we have an up to date account statement, please? - Now, one of the challenges too, because I've spoken to the legal industry about this as well. And obviously the challenges from their perspective is they're saying, hold on now, if there's a contract for sale available from the outset, and suddenly there are five people interested in a particular property, and I'm suddenly dealing with five different, but lawyers are solicitors, and I'm getting the same feel. No, no, no, thank you. So there are challenges which will take time to iron out, but funnily enough, when we launch-- The Solicitor would surely only be engaged at the point where you're agreeing an offer, right? Well... Wouldn't you make sure the upfront information is there that the Solicitor that's acting on behalf of the buyer, if they want that guidance at that point, can say in theory, "Yeah, look, from the data we've got now, if it all backs up, 95% this will go through." Yeah, but some people will engage a Solicitor earlier on. Yeah. there would be additional work for solicitors. But ultimately, when we launched first, we were expecting, this is very interesting, we've got 800 or 900 solicitors who use the system, right? And have used the system, the platform, the other platform. But we expected more pushback from lawyers and solicitors when we launched first, because suddenly we're saying that you have to, it has to be transacted through a platform, et cetera, et cetera, the negotiational piece, et cetera. But what we found was that lawyers and solicitors are also mentally exhausted at this lengthy process. And their frustration far exceeds their lack of desire to be told, this is the way it's going to go. - The lawyer has to update every single party every few days. That's a huge amount of energy and effort taken out of them doing their day job. And as you and I both know, making that or the majority of that information easily accessible and visible within a secure platform, you know, should change that dramatically. Why do you wanna be sat on a solicitor's like into phone system on hold for 10 minutes, waiting to be just to be told by some shirty legal assistant that nothing's changed since you called on Monday, you know, or whatever it is. And it's funny, something else we touched on earlier too is that a lot of with this shift towards whether they be whether it's to do with lettings or sales to do with online transactions. The a lot of agents I have found don't have enough respect for their own website and the importance of their own website and their brand. It's their digital shop window. I have a personal view and just for those who are watching, I was on the high street main street for 20, 25 years and I see the benefits. I have a particular view that the industry is going to go in a particular direction. I think hence the likes of the exps are becoming so popular and because I believe that the I think a time will come The two biggest costs generally speaking for an agent are salaries and rent in a lot of cases Footfall has dropped drastically and a time will come when you're in a town and all you will need in my view The work can take place anywhere remotely wherever once you have a sign on a gable end wall saying I sell Property in this town. So does an awareness? So I find the debate in agency around The importance of the person from an agency perspective not not the the buyer or seller now or ten or landlord. Yeah, I I find this obsession with the value of the human in the transaction. I think interesting, but I think it's out of balance. I think as a profession, are people drawn to people, are people drawn to other personalities they like and identify with or align with? Absolutely. - Of course. - And so there is an argument that-- - It's a people business. - Exactly, and to a certain degree, and that's my thing. I think that is the tagline that every estate agent in the land comes back to, particularly when talking about tech. Ah, but it's a people business. It's a people business when the person likes or identifies with the person, the person displays considerable expertise of professionalism or the person delivers results. - Yeah. - Primarily those three things, if you're really lucky, you get all three, but that is primarily the driver, right? When you then look in sales and nettings, and I think this is true, when you then look at the intrinsic value that a human agent brings to either of those transactions, the points at which you affect the outcome are very small. You've got, for a seller, you've got that first appraisal valuation, whatever you want to call it, right? You've got to get the instruction first. So that's number one. Number two is conveying your value so you get a decent contract and fee out of it. And then obviously number three is getting out there and getting the viewings and the offers in and driving that forward. But really at the point in a sale, once you've agreed that sale, does the agent add much value? You know, as we've talked about like, I'd say an agent adds value because they're good at chasing the conveyances. But if you've got an improved conveyancing system that doesn't need to be chased, what value does that person add? It's very rare that you have a problem come up that requires quite nuanced negotiation. - But it is fair to say that the agent will always be required because it's not like selling a bicycle on eBay in the sense it's too emotive, it's generally somebody's biggest asset. So, you know, my own particular view as somebody who nearly poached your turn, gamekeeper, I was an agent and I ended up in PropTech. I use the analogy, the 80/20. 80% of the transaction generally involves poor communication and excessive administration. And 20%, this sounds very contradictory, but it's a big 20% is to do with hand-holding, negotiating, valuing, reassuring, minding. That's the core, that's the real value of the agent. - I agree with that. In a slow, lethargic manual process. - Yes. - But-- - Which it is. If we arrive at a point where we are no longer trapped in that inefficiency, when we arrive at a point where, like Spain, we can exchange contracts in a week, or where there is a digital property passport where this information is more readily available, at the moment what we're talking about right in sales is that point from offer to exchange and completion is really turgid. But it's actually got nothing really to do with the agent, it's to do with the property data and the solicitors and the process right so my argument in that is in that process other than reassuring people and chasing solicitors that aren't on it what value does the agent bring to that process I'd argue not a lot because if you turn around tomorrow and go right with the government announces tomorrow a whole new digital framework for sales okay from now on all sales will exchange contracts within 10 days and complete within 30. But let's imagine a landscape where that is possible. Okay. Where does the human add value in that? I would argue they don't. I think you can hark back to travel agents. Back to the day when you would walk in and you go in and check with a travel agent. I see a huge difference between a travel agent and an estate agent in the sense that you are dealing with the single biggest asset in most people's life. But people don't, but they don't behave like they're trading their biggest asset. They don't know how to behave. They've never... A lot of them haven't been involved in this process before, but this is ultimately to do with their net worth, their future, their retirement, what they're leading for their kids. I don't... But I think when you look at the average consumer, I actually don't think they approach it like that. I think those are all things kicking around at the back of their head, but fundamentally, they're just looking for their next home. They're just looking for a home that gets their kids into the school they want to. or has that extra bedroom or meets their commute, meets their budget. Those are the key drivers. The longer the transaction is drawn out, the more these other things battle. No, no, and that's a fair point. But ultimately, do you not agree that because of the monstrosity of this particular item that they need, there needs to be a human touch, there needs to be that. So we're kind of arguing in agreement here. Yeah. What I'm saying is the human adds value at the moment because we've got such a shit process. But if we fix the process, you've then got to ask serious questions about what value that human delivers. - Yeah, I think ultimately though, it will be a long time, a long before, you know. It'll be long after us. - Yeah, yeah. - And some would say that's not too long. - Let's hope not. But you know, But yeah, I think you look at it at letting. So I think letting is really interesting, right? It's a much cleaner transaction, right? People make quicker decisions. It's a-- - But even contractually-- - It's not as big a contractual commitment. It's equivalent to leasing a car or taking out a mobile phone contract or whatever. I don't see any reason why, and for a lot of agencies now, you can transact pretty much completely online. You've got your digital agents out there, your open rents and your whatever else is. And I would argue that, you know, if you look at the letting space, I think that's kind of where sales eventually can get to because again, the human in the letting space, if I look at what our team does and where the real value lies, so the value lies in our relationships with our landlords. And that is about whether they trust us, whether they like us and whether they have faith in our ability. - Yeah. - Like us is to do nothing to do with tech. - So you still have that relationship then, okay? And again, like you said, this is where I think you've got models like EXP doing so well, because it focuses on that core relationship. You've got that. And then sometimes you've got that relationship on a viewing with tenants, although I would argue, I would say in probably half all letting transactions I don't think that fundamentally comes into it. I think most tenants walk into a property and Regardless of what they think of the agent showing them the flat the flat the property is either right for them or Yeah, after if the if the if the price is right and the property is right. They don't care They don't care, you know, they might like the agent They might not like the agent but home is everything and that's why also things like EPCs and broadband signals and all this other stuff They want to bring into lettings data are irrelevant because a tenants already have so many other things to consider that drive that transaction. They said location, price, availability, and let's say configurations, like furniture, parking, whatever. Once it ticks those boxes, everything else is a distant. - Yeah, but is it not fair to say, this is interesting, it's not fair to say though that the commitment by a tenant, and this is not in a disrespectful manner, but the commitment by a tenant is far, far less than a commitment by a buyer. - But is it? It's much more short term, for example. Generally it's for-- - But is it? You can buy a property and you can put it straight back on the market the next day? - No, no, I'm talking about from an ownership perspective. When you commit to renting a property, generally you're bought in for a period of, say, 12 months. - Yeah. - Okay? When you commit to buy a property, you're bought in, period. - But you can sell it, that you can put it on the market the day you buy it? - Absolutely. - I mean, there are people who put people, properties on the market before they've even exchanged contracts. - But it's much less fluid. And the point I'm making is that your commitment levels are much, much greater when you purchase because ultimately you're legally the owner of this property and the amount of money or the commitment is far, far greater. - But I think they're just numbers. I think they're just numbers. - Because whether you're paying a mortgage or rent, it's still a financial commitment. And for most people that will be at the threshold of what you can afford. So I don't think most buyers sit there and be like, "Oh yeah, I can afford a 3,000 pound mortgage." but then they obsess about what the debt is that sits behind that. Equally, I don't think a tenant signed the £3,000 a month tenancy agreement and goes, "Oh my God, I've just committed to a £36,000 contract." Yeah, look, maybe as personal view, if I commit to... Like, I've rented for many years and in the last 12 months I've purchased and I've purchased a number of times over the years, but I'm much more in my subconscious, I'm much more aware I've now committed myself and my partner, that we've committed to buying a property we now own the property but if we had we had rented before that yeah and I was just looking at it on a more it's a more it's more transient it's more temporary and maybe it's just me maybe it's just me I mean I think that there is absolutely it's easier to transact a letting's one it's easier to walk away from but fundamentally I think if you look at most transactions I don't materially think there's that much difference I think the debt that sits behind to purchase I think is largely irrelevant. You're either looking to buy or you're looking to rent, whichever your chosen path is, you've kind of reconciled yourself with that, right? You've got your deposit, whether that's equity or cash, you've got it, you've made that commitment. Yes, you're taking on debt, but for most people when they're buying, they'll also, and I think this is true of most buyers, regardless of whether it's based in reality, they'll also be very much looking at the opportunity of, "Ooh, I can buy this and the market is tracking at 8% a year, so I can buy this, I can extend it, I can refurbish it, and in three years' time I can sell it for 50% more than I bought it for now." And that you don't get in letting. You can't move into a rental property and then move out three months later and make money out of it. So, yes, there are different considerations, but I think fundamentally people are either looking to rent or to buy, And so I think when you're in your lane, that's your lane. There aren't many people out there that are like, "I could rent, I could buy whatever." There are a few, but not many. And so once you kind of pick that path, for most tenants rent is exorbitantly expensive in most parts of the country. - Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt, yeah. - Equally, so is buying in a lot of parts of the country now. I don't think those same considerations of affordability and everything else. Yes, you've got considerations of your debt. You've got considerations of your mortgage might change because of the base rate, depending what product you've got. But again, I think a lot of those big decisions come front end. When you choose what mortgage product you're going to take out, and with that you determine how much deposit you're putting down, how long you're locked in for, what your rate are, what your risks and rewards are. Surely though, is it not fair to say that in the event of a significant downturn, your vulnerability, your exposure is going to be potentially far greater in a downturn? But on the flip side, in an upturn market, you can make a killing for doing nothing. Oh absolutely, yeah. Let's look at London. It's much okay. The London market has been tough, but when I came into agency back in 2002, 2002, we were at the hype of London, London property boom, we were on the back of 100 years of property values in London doubling every eight years. Insane. - I didn't even have a pulse to get a margaret. - All you need, you know, before 2008, yeah, you know, you could walk into any lender and be like, can you afford it? Of course I can, here you go. So yeah, I don't, you know, I think we perceive as agents this huge difference between a buyer and a tenant. But fundamentally, I don't think that, that is the path that those people are on. They very rarely have much choice otherwise. Although to say, if you can afford to buy, you're clearly making a choice not to rent. - But also you have those who start renting and end up buying because they're not ready for whatever reason and they haven't got the track record. - To turn that on its head, I've got a friend of mine who makes a disgusting amount of money running a hedge fund. And he and I have had some fascinating conversations over the years. And I remember, God, 10, 15 years ago, he rents. And I said to him, "Did you earn seven plus figures a year? What are you doing wasting money on rent?" He would rent properties that were like two grand a week. So like a hundred grand a year, he would pay the years rent up front in cash because he'd be like, "I don't want the hassle." You know? And I'd be like, "That's crazy." And he was like, "Do you know how much this house would be to buy?" He's like, "This is a £5 million home." So he's like, "I either do finance and I'm losing money on interest or I buy the house outright." He's like, "Do you know how much money I can make with £5 million in cash?" He's like, so a hundred thousand pound, which is like, I can probably write half of that off in my business anyway. - Yeah. - Why do I care? So, you know, it's horses for courses, but I think, you know, we draw these lines, these kind of hard lines of sand between the difference between a tenant and a buyer. I'd actually argue there's very little difference. It's just the circumstance that you tend to find yourself. - I do know that the process, like, We all know there aren't those delays and lags within the rental letting process. And that is fundamentally which is creating all of the issues is that sales process and that offer accepted to sale closing time is just, it's ridiculous. But I'd argue in lettings, when we come back to that personal relationship that an agent has, the agent with the client, which is kind of the underpinning of agency anyway, but the relationship you have with your client, be that the landlord or the seller, is gonna be the most fundamental one because that's the one that is gonna secure you the listing that drives your business and retain that client, right? - I would say I was gonna-- - For the buyer or the tenant, as long as that process is smooth. As long as they can easily buy or easily let and they can easily get a maintenance issue-- - I would suggest that the seller is looking for a more, a greater relationship with the agent. - Yes, yeah, yeah. than the landlord. Yeah. But I would. I think it's more, I think it's purely commercial with the landlords. I think it's purely a case of they want to get the best tenant in at the most rent, whereas the... But does a seller not want to get the best buyer at the best price? Yes, but they need to trust the human relationship, I think, is different between a landlord and the agent, And that's a personal opinion. Having done both over the years, I think that because it's a shorter time frame. So your relationship with, for example... But your liability as a landlord goes on. So no matter what agent you engage, legally as a landlord, you're responsible for all compliance. Yes, but your commitment. And so that is where that relationship carries on. Yeah, yeah. You know, on a sale, you do a sale. What's the sales done? Most sellers will never talk to that agent again in their lifetime largely because the agent never contacts them again. But they'll never talk to that agent again. - Funny you said that, I came across a status more to do with the buyers and this is a very interesting status I've come across with the UK and Ireland that one in eight buyers return to the agent they bought from. - I mean, it's a shockingly low stat, right? - Incredible. - But again, consumer psychology is fascinating, right? And again, like I find A, the friends and family dynamic fascinating. This, this-- - You mean the referral type? - The aversion of friends and family to use and trust people that they know. - Oh, okay. - I think that to me is fascinating. - Is that not just the human reluctance to get into confrontation and that, because it's a personal relationship, you have with them and you don't want to mix the business. - But how weird is it if you're going through the biggest transaction of your life, Would you not want someone you explicitly trust in your corner? But apparently not. And that's the weird thing. They'd rather pick some random person and then come to you with their problems, which is so much fun. But yeah, look, I think it's fascinating, but I think there's a lot of parallels. I think we've built an agency around service and personality. So I think some agents, when they hear me talk about this, they think that I'm somehow advocating for this like humanless, totally digital transaction. Absolutely not, because then all we are as a tech product, right? All you are is an app on the phone and it's which app does it better, faster, quicker, cheaper, easier, and there's no other thing. There is absolutely a role for the human and the personalities within the business are essential, but as agents particularly, what we really need to be super, super honest about is where we deliver value as humans within that process. - Yeah, yeah. And you have to deliver a value or else you're irrelevant. You've become irrelevant. - I think we think our clients want a phone call from us every week. They don't really, they don't really, like we give them that call because it gives them some relevant piece of information and really it's more for us, right? Because we want to gauge how they're feeling on that. Do we notice that they're maybe getting a bit frustrated or a bit? I would suggest they don't need a call from the agent, but they do need an update and that could be in a digital form as in they log into a dashboard and they can, well actually there was six inquiries in the property this week and there was two of them. Or else, for example, if there's no inquiries at all, they'll know, maybe my pricing is a little bit off here, I need to talk to the agent. I think we've got to learn to give them more say in how they interact with us. So that update could be, here is the market activity for the last week or here is the update on your sales progression for this week. Do you have, you know, do you require information? You know, are there questions we've to answer? And how would you like to present those? Do you want to email them to us? Do you want to jump on WhatsApp? Would you like to schedule a call? Do you want to jump online? Yeah. Do you want to arrange to come in the office and sit down face to face? You know, I think as agents, we've got to really understand that we've got to give the customer more choice. You've got to be a good communicator. You've got to give them accessibility and ease of transaction as much as you can. Interestingly, you've got to be careful that you don't remove so much friction that they don't understand why you're there. So the more you automate, the more you streamline, the more you've got to spend time educating your client base on why you're the most expensive but you're going to sell the property for the highest price and the quickest time for the lowest amount of stress. How is that possible? One thing I'd be interested in your view in relation to the lettings and the rental market. I see agency of the future being, apart from the digitizing of the transaction, that's a a separate thing. But I'm just going back to my own days as an agent. So I said this to somebody recently, so I was thinking back, when did I get my biggest buzz as an agent? I was just thinking back and it wasn't actually when I saw the property is when I got that phone call to say, you've got the sale contracts exchanged. No, no, no, as an agent, it was you've got the sale, get your sign up. Yeah. And that was my that's where I and I spoke to a number of agents and that's actually what gives them the buzz. So what has happened naturally over generations is agents have focused primarily. And I like that ego, right? Because you want to put a sign up saying I've sold this house. No, no, no, no, no. That sign doesn't change anything for the person selling the house. No, no, no, no. It doesn't change anything for the buyer. No, no, no, no. The a commission. Okay. But the point is that is not not ego because you're focused on no, it's money. Yeah. So the big difference between ego and money. So it's about because I've that in my mind, I'd be more I've got another board up, I get another fee. Okay. So by ego, what I mean is you're driven by self interest. I'm doing the board up. It's not that board doesn't benefit your seller and doesn't benefit. I associate the board with me securing greater amounts of a more commission. That's how I associate it. But the point I'm making is that the agents of the future who are the most successful, I'm already starting to see it with progressive agencies, at those, and we touched on it a moment ago about only one in eight buyers going back, back to sellers, is those agents who are now putting a value on the relationship with buyers. Yes. And going forward. So it's, but it's understanding where that relationship, What makes that relationship and where the value is? The value is not in sending that person an email every week or calling them every week to give and to have a boring conversation with them. - Congratulations on the move into the house and maybe one year anniversary, you give them a card and then if you're doing something big and sponsoring something in the town, you invite them to and et cetera, but it's maintaining that connection. And I think ultimately, because the average transaction, average person moves on average every eight to 10 years. So therefore now you're getting into potentially dealing with putting a value on the buyers as opposed to just... So I agree entirely with everything you've just said. It's about the personal, maintaining that communication, making it feel authentic, the anniversary of your purchase, your birthday, maybe you know the kids' birthdays, wedding anniversaries, make notes again. Who is it? I was speaking to you the other day and they were saying that, I can't remember if it was where they used to work or where they work now, but they had a reward scheme in the office where if you came back from evaluation, there's something personal about that person. - Okay. - No, so it would be like, they've got three kids. - Okay, yeah, not. - You know, and they've got two twins and they've got this and the twins, I don't know, into gymnastics and the lands of football. you know, whatever, come back with something material about those people that you form a relationship around. And actually that was rewarded higher than coming back and getting full fees, for example. - That's interesting. - Because relationships are built out of knowledge and understanding of one another, right? So if you're bringing in those facts of, you know, how many kids they've got, what they like to do on a weekend, like you said, that is then the tie in, Oh, there's an antique, you know, the antique's road shows coming to the road up the street. Oh, who was that buyer two years ago? Who was an antique's nut? Right, we're going to reach out to them. It's got nothing to do with us, but we're just going to let them know. I think agents need to be far more aware. They'll say, "Oh, I've just picked a figure of eight years." Okay, now that is a fairly accurate stat. But let's say it is eight years for a particular person who is bought from an agent and is thinking of selling. An agent struggles with that's eight years down the road. But that happens very, very quickly. This is where the business, right? Your front end neg, like you said, your front end neg is not going to be thinking about when they transact with that client. And in England, Wales, I say, I think it's something more like 12 to 15 years transaction wise. You're not going to motivate a negotiator who is being measured and pushed on viewing targets, offer targets and commission on deals. You're not going to convince them that they to put in the effort now so that in 12 years time, that client only comes to you. - It's probably more for business owners and management, looking at strategy, business plan going forward, market share, that type of thing. - And so it's about asking that question about where that relationship is formed and where that value is formed. And this brings me back to my original point, which is I think agents misunderstand what that relationship really is, the relationship that drives value. And it's really a likability factor. to personality thing, 'cause outside of the transaction, in sales, that eight, 10, 12, 15 year, that is only gonna be maintained through an element of likability. Otherwise, there's gonna come a point where they're just gonna click unsubscribe on your email, and that's it. - Yeah. - No more contact. - Yeah. - So, it's about understanding that and not repeating it as this kind of blank mantra of people buy from people, but actually asking what the hell that actually means. - Well, I did do it with-- what maintain that relationship for that 8, 10, 12, 15 years looks like because it's not going to be the front end person. So do you get someone who was really good at viewings but actually not maybe that great at tying up the deals? So here's one fear and it's relevant to what you're saying then. So is it a case because you've turned over the staff and unless you're the owner of the business it may not be of interest to you in eight or ten years time. Is it maybe that the person resonates with the brand or the firm as opposed to an individual within that firm. So is there an awareness that when, because in an ideal world from an agent's perspective, the way it should be, going back to that one and eight is when somebody goes to sell an eight years time, you should be the first agent that comes to their mind because they bought from you. And it won't happen unless you have continued the relationship in some form during those eight years. But you're going to have to accept the fact that you're never going to motivate that frontline negotiator to nurture that relationship for 15 years. So what agents really need to look at is get past this kind of insistence that that does drive that relationship and go, okay, no, we now need, obviously subject to the size of the business, we now need a customer service hub of one, two, five, ten people and literally all they do is for that eight, ten, twelve, fifteen years they nurture that relationship. They look at those notes about the person, they draw together interesting content, they make sure those comms are retained for the anniversary of the purchase. And it could be something as simply as you say that there's a physical card goes out every anniversary. Congratulations on your seventh anniversary because nobody else is going to think about it being done. - Sometimes the old stuff is the best stuff, right? It was, someone was chatting the other day about Stephen Brown and the cards that he sends out. You know, he sends everyone 100 birthday cards 'cause no one sends 100 birthday cards anymore other than your mum and your dad, you know? And how special that feels. - Well, it's personalized, they feel-- - And yet, how much effort does it take? Really, not a lot, you know? And so, look for agents, and I think the bigger the agent, it would be interesting because they're going to have to jump in two feet first and go, "Do you know what? We're going to commit to this for the next three years or five years. We're going to commit half a million pound a year over the next five years." Accepting there's going to be no return. "To work with team, because in the first two or three years, we're not going to see anything. And you might be lucky to see it in five, but get it right and out the back of that five years and into the future, all of a sudden now you change that one in eight coming back to you to six in eight or five in eight. You know, you're four, five X-ing your inquiries from an established relationship, which as we know, you know, whether it's a established relationship or a referral, they're the best because they know how you work. They don't quibble on fees. They want to work with you. So it is your deal to screw up. There's a there's a initial trust that you don't have to work for and that money you're investing there You will save in advertising because if if you're a Connell's country wide and you can spend half a million pound on that team Yeah You can absolutely cut half a million pound a year out of your advertising budget once you get the traction There's no doubt you will see agents giving putting more value on the Relationship with the buyer are going for those taking the longer term view I think they will benefit in the medium to long term And there'll still be many who will just look at it as a short transaction, short-term view and just a transaction. But time will tell, but that's just my particular view. Well, I think we've done well then, mate. I think we've said enough. I think they definitely agree. They're like, Jesus Christ, an Irishman and a Viking. Like Christ, they didn't have a drink beforehand, but this has been like three hours long. That's a bit early. It's a bit early. So I think there's some really interesting - So, I think the interesting points People buy from people, it's a people business. I think there is a foundation of truth to that. But I think in the same way that agents do things because that's how they've always been done. - I know, there's no doubt. - I think in a similar way, this line is trotted out. - And you mentioned that ego, there is, you know, people feel the need to justify their role, et cetera. But there's no doubt, you know, we all know. And one of the challenges you mentioned earlier is that one of the challenges for agents is, and they can be rabid in headlights. And I say that with respect, is that they've all these pieces of tech coming at them and they're going, because their expertise, I always use the analogy, the best estate agent in the UK is potentially the worst tech person in the UK. And that's not that me criticised, it's just the area of expertise is sales and transactions and valuing whatever. And they know they have to change, but they don't really know what it is exactly they have to do and what's best for them and they're being told. - I think an important underpinning of that, and this comes from leadership down, you've got to understand where you add value. And I think there is a perception within agency, and I think this is true of lettings and sales. There is a perception, again, from top down, all the way down to junior people, whether you're looking at people you employ yourself, I think there is a warped perception of where we add value. And I think, you know, I've said for many years now, for me, there's a really hard line. And for me, any interaction that you have between a customer, let's just call them customers now, That includes clients, buyers and tenants, your whole customer base. When you're interacting with a customer in whatever, to facilitate whatever it is, do you add value to the outcome of that interaction? Like, do you alter whether the outcome is good or bad? Do you affect the result? Or, do you literally just do something or not? Because I would wager if you're a human in an agency process and all you do is you either do something or you don't do it, then I would argue you shouldn't be involved in that process because you are the single point of failure but you don't change the outcome. - Yeah, okay. - Right? Where you add value or where you influence the outcome of that be that a sale price or a transaction preventing a fall through whatever it is. - Are you part of the process or do you influence the process? - Exactly. So now if you're part of the process, you are just a cog in a wheel. And tech will do that far more reliably than you ever could. But if you affect the outcome, then absolutely. And I think not enough businesses understand the difference between those two points. And I think that then feeds into, they don't understand where the stresses are within the business, automation can bring bona fide business benefit and also understanding where their team really add value and again that that feeds into things like job satisfaction and you know go we won't get into this now because we've talked long enough but you know recruitment is a huge problem in this industry attracting the right talent is a huge problem to be retaining talent is a huge problem this industry and again I think a lot of that comes back to there are too many agents out there who misunderstand the value the people bring to their this and that is not someone sat at a desk pressing keys on a keyboard moving one piece of data from one system to another. Taking note, you know, taking a phone call and then writing that note up and then emailing that out to each party. There are systems that can do all of that far more reliably, far more seamlessly. And yeah, you know, so yeah, I think it's a fascinating thing and I think, you know, like I said, we've built an agency around personality and service. So, but for me, it's about understanding the reality and the truth of that. So we're saying we've solved everything we've solved everything we've solved it. You know, I think I think there we go. Problem solved. Might be the last ever episode of the Viking podcast, because we've sold lettings and sales in like roughly an hour. I mean, impressive. But look, in all seriousness, if you're not already familiar with offer, do check out the platform, have a look. It is looking at tackling a lot of the friction points that come into that early offer stage. - Offer.io. - There we go, offer.io. And yeah, Philip is an all right individual. So you can occasionally reach out to him. He doesn't bite too hard. So if you wanna find out a little bit more about-- - I'm one of the younger guys in the industry. - Exactly, look at his youthful-- - You believe that? - You believe everything, so. - But no, thanks for joining us, guys. Hope you've been interested. - Thanks for being here today. - Absolutely, enjoy. See you guys soon. Bye.