The Ivy Gate “Hybrid” estate agency model demands less investment, has higher margin’s and faster growth than traditional agencies. To ensure that we continue to thrive, increase profit margins and outgrow our competitors we evolve through innovative strategy and meticulous planning. We have many firsts to our name, the most recent being the first estate agency to offer online, traditional and luxury services under the one brand. It’s proving to be a great success! We have big plans and will be bringing more successful firsts in the future.
We want to share our success with people that would like to have a share in our business. That’s why we launched our Franchise Ownership programme in 2015. You can own your own Ivy Gate business, benefiting from 100% of your profits and growing an asset that is 100% yours. We know it’s still a big step to open your own business, but it is a step made easier and more exciting with Ivy Gate by reducing risk and increasing your opportunities.
Here’s the four most asked questions, top of the worry list!
1. Investment – How much do I need
This is the most critical part of any business. The cashflows we’ve produced show that you can open and run your business on a £50K investment, but only if everything goes as expected as this is very tight. To reduce worry and risk to the minimum we recommend you have the ability to access £100K, £75K initial investment and £25K contingency. The only reason a business fails when being run by talented people is that it runs out of money.
The added benefit of this additional investment and contingency is that on top of intense marketing campaigns you can immediately start employing your sales and lettings team, enabling you to grow much quicker.
One of the most straightforward ways to fund the Ivy Gate Franchise business is invest 50% of your own money and 50% bank lending. So far 100% of our Franchise Partners that followed this route have been offered lending from HSBC and Lloyds.
If you don’t have £50K ready to invest, invite an experienced and successful agent to be an investor and come and work as your business partner.
It’s not easy to decide when it comes to investing. Wealth advisors in Melbourne can help you understand your goals and work out certain investment strategies.
2. Economy – What happens if we have a slow down or recession
We never know what’s really going to happen with the property market, but we do know that in times of uncertainty or sales downturn that rentals grow and they grow significantly. To ensure that an estate agency business had strong foundations we recommend and ensure our Franchise Partners start day one as multi disciplined agents, having both a strong lettings team as well as sales team. If you as the business owner are weighted towards one discipline, say sales, make your life easy and immediately employ or bring in a partner that is an experienced letting agent.
To ensure that you have the right mix of sales and lettings experience we at Ivy Gate will help find and introduce the right people to each other.
3. Competition – What affect will the new online estate agents have on my business
The online businesses Purple Bricks etc are competition, but they are competition in the same way as all competitors. They will appeal to a certain type of person as do all other competitors. The successful business has it’s differentiators and knows the target audience they wish to attract.
Th online businesses are no more threat than the already established businesses. All successful businesses focus on their target audiences client profile and constantly look ahead to form strategies that keep them ahead of their competition.
This requires a strategist in your business if you wish to be the successful top agent. This strategist needs to be working in active and successful agencies right now. Ivy Gate has this strength in abundance.
4, Team structure – skill set
As a minimum you need the team to have these skills…
Exceptional at;
strategy and planning
property sales from start to finish in the whole process
lettings from start to finish in the whole process
marketing sales and lettings
social networking
accounting
budgeting
One of the major advantages of the small business franchise for sale is that you already have a support team exceptional in all skills required to run a successful, growing and profitable business. Here at Ivy Gate we are launching our Franchise Partner businesses with this full support.
If you are ready to step of the merry go round of employment and start you own Estate Agency business or are already an independent looking to grow faster come and chat with us about becoming an Ivy Gate business owner. Let’s see if together we make the best of this excellent business opportunity.
Gary E:gary.winter@ivygate.co.uk T: 07590 566170