EweMove has reported its best-ever month for new enquiries from home sellers.
The hybrid agency, part of the The Property Franchise Group, recently revealed strong figures, having more than doubled annual income to £5m.
Recent success has been supported by an improving sales agreed pipeline, which was up 120% at almost 2,000 properties at the end of March, while rental the supply of properties has also seen a sharp increase – up 50% year-on-year.
Now the hybrid agency says that interest from new opportunities – sellers and landlords – hit almost 5,000 in April.
April also saw EweMove receive over 15,000 enquiries from buyers and tenants looking to move home.
EweMove managing director, Nick Neill, said: “The importance of lead generation has always been a factor in predicting an agency’s success. But in times when there are more buyers than sellers and more tenants than available properties, it makes those enquiries from people thinking of selling and letting worth their weight in gold.”
April was the best month for new opportunities across the network since it was formed in 2014, and Neill puts this success down to the firm’s focus on generating leads through our tried and tested Lean Green Marketing Machine.
He added: “We’ve invested heavily in making sure our franchisees benefit from a consistently predictable stream of new, quality leads each month. Added to that, almost 50 per cent of our franchisees’ business comes from recommendations and referrals from delighted clients.
“This makes us feel very confident about the future and the direction our growing network of more than 140 franchisees is heading, with 25 new franchisees joining so far in 2021 alone.”
Comments (14)
They really also need to have a look at compliance in their recruitment
There has been a recent failure in Macclesfield ,a town which has the dubious distinction of boasting not 1 but 2 franchisee fails.
Unfortunate but the 2nd never stood a chance .You couldn’t make it up.
No due diligence when they took him on He was under a restraining order for stalking when he was recruited which was all over the local news like a rash .
What woman would let him into the house and hardly surprising he packed up last year with a heavy debt
Success has come at a huge price for some .
It starts with the frothy pitch at ewefranchise.com encouraging those with zero experience , take a 1 week course , a bit of graft & with cutting edge tech. within a few years you have a £500k business.
“I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams!!
70+ failures show otherwise.
I calculate that failed franchisees have walked away with over £1.5m worth of debt That is a totally unacceptable figure.
Too many no hopers are left to struggle on accumulating more debt
Its painful to watch some. a suicide in instalments .
There is one in Berkshire at the moment 2 guys late career change now reached retirement age with a liability of over £200k increasing and just 1 instruction. They are never going to recover Why hasnt the Head Shepherd intervened to put them out of their misery .
No other franchise operation has a similar failure rate
*Some migrated back to Martins
Altrincham, Appleton.Ashford Barnsley South, Bournville, Bracknell.Blaby. Bolton North.Bromsgrove Cambridge, Chester East Croydon Chepstow,Chichester* Corby* Crewe*Crystal Peaks,Chelmsord(2) Cheadle Cardiff,Colchester Doncaster North.Doncaster South Epsom. Ealing.Edinburgh West Frodsham Gloucester, Hamilton .Hull West ,Hackney.Harrogate Kidderminster Laindon Park Lincoln Maghull. Macclefield (2)Maidstone ,Milton Keynes .Market Weighton Newmarket,Nottingham Newbury, Nantwich* Northwich*,Northampton Oxford Poole,Pudsey Reading, River Hamble Redhill&Reigate Stalybridge Streatham Stratford Uoon Avon Slough Staines&Ashford Stevenage .Southampton Shoeburyness” Sheffield* Stroud Teeside Vale of Glamorgan Wylde Green. Walthamstow W Grimsby .Watford
Great we have loads of buyers and tenants!!
Whoops we have no houses!!
Not so long ago they relied wholly on pay per click advertising. It sounds as if this is still the case. Ian Wilson was completely duped thinking he was buying some magic marketing machine; he wasn’t!
Franchises can be very successful but there are plenty of other ways of building a successful business without paying out a large percentage of your turnover to a company that advises you to grow revenue against profitability.
I’m guessing that every agent is seeing increases in enquiries, mainly due to people checking in every day to see if anything new coming to the market. If only we had the property to match all the enquiries.
Invested? Still the old out dated website that provides no franchise with local SEO. A promise for a couple of years that a new one was coming. Along with the new system… still not arrived.
employed 1 more in marketing but still unable to provide a proper service. Invested, don’t make me laugh.
There were 90 franchisees in 2016 and now, if you believe the “stories” there are 140. If 20 are joining each year, like they claim, it puts the failure rate at 50%.
It’s like flipping a coin. Heads you survive, tails you lose everything?
I have this conversation with Hillofwad; experienced agents joining any of the hybrid agencies are adults, experienced agents taking a franchise to help them be part of an established brand and enjoy the technology and systems the franchise offers. I would think Nick and Gareth are as disappointed as the franchisee when things don’t work out but this free will and choice stuff.
Any agent trying to establish themselves faces the same challenges; every #local activity centre has at least 3 established agency who are already competing fiercely for listings, joining that fight in two or 3 #local areas and being up against 10 -30 local agencies isn’t easy.
The blunt one on this is that if you’re a 9-5:30 plus half day every other Saturday agent, the level of effort that got you by in an agency that was established isn’t enough effort to get you by in a business where it’s your efforts paying the bills
I don’t think many people will find a 50% failure rate, or higher, an acceptable level of risk.
If, as you say, the people responsible for these failures feel that the level of risk is acceptable, why don’t they underwrite the financial losses?
What am I missing that I don’t understand? Have I missed that taking a franchise de-risks agency and somehow makes all competition miraculously melt away.
With a brand, boards, technology and process provided, all the basics of agency what else can be done to help people taking a franchise a success? I’d genuinely like to know what you think should be underwritten.
Have you either lost or sold your integrity Robert?
Where on the Ewemove website and in their sales literature are these huge number of failures being declared in a transparent way?
Not at all, All I can go on is an objective view of what I can see. I can see people who want to be their own boss as good traditional estate agents can do that as part of Ewemove but they have to bust their nether regions to compete with well established incumbent agencies.. Those that do well deserve admiration for being good enough to do that.
The people who don’t make it have made choices to get them to the point of failure. Some of those choices weren’t entirely theirs. ” Errr sorry love I’ve been let go” is often a pivotal point in someone’s career that’s partially determined by decisions the individual made as an employee. Sometimes not, I was let go from an agent in 1989 despite doing all I could for the agent I worked for. I faced a choice, made a decision which was to rent a desk in a new town. before becoming a manager in another agency.
Hillofwad is the champion guardian angel of wannabe franchisees and does as much as he can to ensure people don’t walk into a franchise all starry eyed and unaware but he cannot help those who take up a franchise and then don’t do enough to be a success.
The franchise process might have room to be more robust but then those not good enough to be Ewemove agents will simply become passive intermediary listing experts for another hybrid agency. Whatever happens they will be what they will be and still be competition fighting for instructions.
I think you are looking at it through rose tinted glasses Robert.
Especially with the ‘Pro’ spin some franchises put on it as they make it sound its a license to print money.
To be honest with your fair and level attitude i find it odd you can endorse the franchise model as very few in the estate agency field go on to do well.
50% fail rate for EweMove looks generous, HOW has provided many figures with firms underperforming or failing.
you know me well enough to know I don’t do that and I know you well enough to know your opinion of the lazy 9-5ers who’ve drifted from agency to agency doing the bare minimum round all the agents who will take them.
Someone having a zone A window display isn’t necessarily a better agent than someone who doesn’t. Someone who puts their name above the door is investing more and has more to lose so I just see this as a model that allows agents to be agents in a way that they have decided suits them.
The good ones will make a go of it and will compete with their old firm as much as they will yours, the ones who shouldn’t finally get the message agency isn’t for them.