A rapidly growing hybrid agency, which operates a self-employed business model without a high street office, has added to the near 20 franchised partner agents it already has in place.
Mr & Mrs Clarke has announced the arrival of a new partner covering North Norfolk and Norwich.
David Lowes joins the business following a number of years working around the world for prestigious conglomerates including Samsung, where he spent three years as chief marketing officer for Europe, and Unilever, where he spent 28 years working in multiple senior roles across the food brands division.
His decision to enter the estate agency sector is said to be inspired by his long-time love of property.
He will be covering North Norfolk, encompassing the likes of Georgian market town Holt, coastal towns Wells-next-the-Sea and Cromer, as well as Norwich.
Lowes said: “I couldn’t be happier to be joining Mr & Mrs Clarke as partner for Norfolk, a part of the country I absolutely adore and am proud to call home.
“Having lived all around the world I have been lucky enough to have experienced living in a variety of properties and along the way have developed a total passion for property.
“It feels incredibly exciting to be embarking on this next chapter following my previous career – I am a huge fan of the book “The 100-Year Life – living and working in an age of longevity” and look forward to seeing how my extensive sales and marketing experience from my first career can help contribute to the success of my second.”
Mr & Mrs Clarke claims it will have 100 partners working throughout the end of 2022.
Paul Clarke, founder of Mr & Mrs Clarke, commented: “We are so pleased to welcome David to the Mr & Mrs Clarke family and love that he brings with him a wealth of experience from his impressive former career working for Samsung and Unilever.
“David’s transition into estate agency only goes to show that the property industry is happily becoming more fluid and gone are the days of needing to don a suit and tie in order to be taken seriously as an estate agent.
“David recognises that buying a house is more than a transaction, it’s an emotional process, and it’s his genuine love of Norfolk and deep knowledge of the houses within it that stands him in excellent stead as our new Norfolk Partner.”
Comments (9)
The online agent Strike, which was previously House Simple, before it re-trenched from its aspirations of being a national agent brand and concentrated on the North, is looking for fresh recruits.
Based on an agency model of being free, unlike the typical no sale no fee model, or even online model of Purplebricks – pay upfront sale or no sale, it may be hard to understand how these new starts are going to earn a living.
Maybe Sam Mitchell the top man knows, as worryingly if you look on their website you have to take a £699 option if you want accompanied viewings, (not very free) and there does seem a heavy emphasis on ‘free mortgage advice’ which possibly means the service is a sales funnel for financial services revenue.
Maybe Sam can enlighten me, as to how free the model is, after all their slogan is ‘A transparent experience from start to finish’.
MY LOVE OF PROPERTY………………….GIVE ME F****** STRENGTH
So another person with no property background. Says a lot about the industry professionalism of this group and why after years of being anti-licensing, now reviewing that thought with the increasing number of bedroom agents.
Not necessarily relevant to this ‘article’ – so apologies to ‘Mr & Mrs Clarke (who I am sure are very nice people and do not in any way represent the model that my post is intended to target) for hijacking the comments thread – but here’s an idea to chew over.
In defence of the post, it’s an idea I’ve given quite a lot of thought to over the years – and have mentioned it to a few but never really pushed it. I think now’s the time – so here goes.
As we all know, there are a large number of Portal Listing Facilitators (PLFs) masquerading as ‘Estate Agents’ and ‘Letting Agents’ throughout the UK that should be made to relocate to Norwich or its’ surrounding towns.
Furthermore, these PLFs should all be grouped together under the same corporatesqueish name – as let’s face it, they are all indistinguishable from one another in their offering or the mistruths they spout in order to fleece the next unsuspecting homeowner. A catchy name. One which does what it says on the tin (credit: Ronseal).
I therefore give you…
‘Norfolk&Chanceof Selling or Letting’
I think it could catch on. It has legs, dont’cha think, dear colleagues in industry?
Well up (or down?) to your usual standard of humour, Mr PeeBee 🙂
I try, Retiredandrelaxed…
…and sometimes, like a budgie with a busted beak, I succeed. ;o)
“Into the valley of death rode the six hundred!”
Yes it seems that all it takes to become an esate agent nowadays . On one hand you have the importance of training and the ever increasing matters of complaince being shouted from the rooftops and on the other anyone can join in the party
In an interview this week the Head Shepherd at Ewemove has this to say about professional agents who have been too busy to notice exercising all their different skills etcs honed by experience in getting deals safely over the line by yesterday
Just listers with a single skillset Huge disrespect and misunderstanding of the process and you wonder why there have been over 75 franchisee failures there.
“We have seen very experienced estate agents – ‘listers’ for want of a better word – fail at running their own agency as they only have one skill, specifically sales”
These are the required skillsets he views as necessary for a good agent
“Namely, they are: Customer Focus – Sales Capability – Emotional stability – Business Management experience.”
Nothing about the professional ability to “value” the all important property asset correctly
Disgrace!
One thing I have never understood on CVs or applications “My love of Property”
Whenever I have asked somebody to tell me what that means that can’t tell me.
“Oh look Doris, a 1970′ boxy looking terrace house, Phwor! That really gets me going. Only thing better is a large Semi!”
Loving property and loving working in agency are two different things.