Hello and welcome to Opening the Gates to more listings for
Estate agents with me, Simon Gates.
And I'm delighted to be joined today by Mr. Stewart there.
Stuart thank you very much for joining me.
Thanks for having me on Simon. You're very welcome.
So we first met couple of months ago now.
Yes, we we, we met at a venue called Swingers, didn't we?
And and I feel unless we explain what Swingers is, it could
mislead. Let's just leave it there.
No, no, no.
We need to explain what Swingers is now Simon.
So yeah, but Stuart and I are a couple of swingers.
I actually I actually won the swingers event as well.
I'm still bitter about that. I'm close second and I'm
convinced that you've had me on because it gives you an excuse
to talk about your victory. What, what, what can I say?
So for those of you thinking, what on earth are they talking
about? It was a crazy golf networking
event that we're both at in London, which is brilliant.
I I've really enjoyed the, I'd say modern version of networking
in recent years since I started my business.
So I think when people hear the word networking, they assume
like BNI and it's 6:00 in the morning doing a breakfast
meeting and standing up in front of a room full of people and
saying, hi, my name is Simon. This is what I do.
If you know anyone who needs help, let me know.
It's nice to play, you know, a bit of crazy golf probably set
the course record at swingers. I don't know have have a few
pints and meet new people because we obviously are in the
same, I don't know, 4 ball. I got chatting and realised
we're not 1,000,000 miles away from each other either.
I, I was surprised that we never crossed paths.
I mean, you know, I'm in Bedford, you're in, you're in
Newport Pagnell. So yeah, we're only just, only
just down the road from each other.
My my first job was at actually in Newport Pagnell after leaving
school. Did you tell me that?
Well, because of the nature of networking events nowadays, I
think we'd had a couple of drinks.
I can't quite remember what I told you.
I had AI had a few drinks afterwards as well and I was
recording some video content the next day and yeah, let's just, I
was a little bit dehydrated. I have to ask you very quickly,
what was that first job in Newport Packer?
It was selling advertising in a magazine.
So this, I suppose this is where I've got a lot of my resilience
because the, the, the model was, you'd ring up a company, say if
you want to write an article about, yeah, we want to invite
your suppliers to support the article.
And then you would ring the suppliers and say, I'm writing
an article about Simon Gates PLC.
You're a key supplier and we'd like you to advertise.
The, the larger your advert, the more editorial Simon gets.
So I'm going back to him this afternoon.
Would you like to spend £2000 on a half page or 4000 lbs on a
full page? So it was proper phoning through
telephone directories getting told to bugger off 50 times a
day. Just proper boiler room sales.
How many years ago was that? That would have been in the late
90s, so sort of 199798 phoning through the chunky Yellow Pages,
phoning through business directories, trying to trying to
get past receptionists, trying to speak to decision makers.
I'm just, I mean, I'm astounded, but now I'm also not, I don't
think people realise just like how expensive print was back in
the day, like those numbers that we, this is a, a completely,
this could be a podcast in itself.
But when people talk about like the cost of advertising on Right
Move these days and yes, you know, they charge a significant
amount of money. But then you go, if you look at
how much used to put in the newspaper and how much that
costs and then you work out inflation, you go actually if
the amount of Leeds Right Move returns, I think a lot of agents
where they'd like to admit it publicly are quite happy with
the ROI they get from Right Move and then how much used to spend
in the newspapers for not really that many enquiries.
Yeah, I mean even back 20 years ago the the local newspapers
were charging you, you'd pay every week and you could be
paying 3, four, £500 a week. So index linked that with
inflation that you know nowadays you'd be paying probably best
part of three 3 1/2 grand just to get a decent advert in your
in your local Reg and. Then by the time like you've
you've, you've signed off the paper.
I'm just thinking about to Milton Keynes Citizen.
When I used to have to sign off the advert, it was like on a
Monday to go out on the Thursday.
And then you go and sell one of those properties on a Tuesday.
It's in the in the newspaper and it's like, well, that was a
base. It's already sold.
But you can't, you can't, you can't control that.
So how how do you go from that into the mortgage world?
I had a good friend of mine that was a mortgage broker for
Connell's group and I'd always been good with figures.
I didn't particularly excel at school.
I I think the pinnacle was when I was 9, I came first in the in
the whole year in this maths exam and my parents were brought
in set and told oh, Stuart's a genius, start looking for a
university. And then it just went like that
because I wasn't motivated at school, loved sport, messed
around and it transpired by the time that I'd done GCS ES, my
form tutor actually said to my mother, Miss is there it would
be a waste of taxpayers money to allow your son to do a levels.
So got the first job in sales, you know, always out of head for
figures, you know, spoke to a friend about it and, and, you
know, got, got in, got in contact with Connells.
And, you know, 25 years later, I'm, I'm still there and had
risen through the ranks. But I think the day I walked
into that branch, I just fell in love with the job and fell in
love with the industry. And then say 1/4 of a century,
Yep, you, you spend in, in one of the biggest businesses in
this industry in the country. Yep.
And then you have, I don't know, because I don't know if, if
we've discussed this, you have your Jerry Maguire moment and
then you go and go and do your own thing.
So if I can ask what like what, what was the epiphany, the
catalyst to going right, That's it.
I'm going to go do something else because it you would have
been pretty comfortable, I guess, right?
Doing what you're doing to an extent.
Yes, I guess when when I first joined Connells it was just the
160 branch network, quite a sequence group.
So it felt like a family business.
And you know, I was surrounded by great people.
And I think over the years you know, the business has gradually
changed. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm
hugely fortunate to have been surrounded by some great people
and the foresight of the likes of Stephen Shipley, David
Livesey to make some of the smart acquisitions.
What they did with Right Move gave me loads and loads of
opportunities. But I think, you know, the
business changed over the years. You know, it became very
massive, very corporate, almost a bit retail like.
And I think you get to a point in your life where you've
probably got a little bit more financial freedom and you can
probably take that risk. And I just saw a huge gap in the
market. I've known Adam a long time.
I was involved with him when Connell was bought hatch and
even vaguely from his country property days in kitchen.
And I think you know, what he's done and what Exp has done, you
know, it's phenomenal. You know, I don't think I think
there'll always be a place for corporate High Street estate
agency, but you know, without question the self-employed
model, you know, the, the trajectory of growth is, is
hugely impressive. And I think we're probably going
to get to a point of seeing 2530% of the industry, you know,
on that self-employed model. So I saw the opportunity within
Exp and, and a couple of other things.
What I also saw was the value of mortgage businesses nowadays.
And I think the tip for any estate agents listening is don't
undervalue your data. The the data you're sitting on
is hugely, hugely valuable. Obviously it's only valuable if
you do the right thing with it. But you know, Simon, if you're
an estate agent in Newport Pagne and I'm a mortgage broker in
Newport Pagne or somebody buys a house through you, you don't
know whether they're going to move in two years, 10 years, 25
years. If I arrange a mortgage that you
introduced to me, there's a guaranteed time in two or five
years when that customer will will remortgage and then I'll
process again in another two to five years.
So I'm going to be earning from that customer 9 or 10 times and
I only pay you once, which doesn't seem fair.
Is that is that the standard procedure there in the in kind
of the mortgage world is for you pay, pay once and then that's
it? Unless you own that mortgage
business. Yeah, yeah.
Business is part of yours that that seems to be the status quo,
OK. And of course, you know, the
value of data nowadays that's made the value of mortgage
businesses skyrocket. So I saw, you know, just modest
910 broker businesses selling for four or £5,000,000.
I think it's so much easier to sell a mortgage business because
of the value of data in today's world than it is to sell an
estate agency business. So I, I just thought there's an
opportunity here to do something with Exp that benefits Exp
agents in the long term with lifetime Commission and equity
in the company. And I suppose the other, the
other big opportunity I saw was traditionally if you're a
mortgage broker in our industry, if you want a national estate
agency lead source, you're normally ready to a PAYE
contract. You need to be in the office
Monday to Saturday at these hours and you don't really have
any autonomy. You've, you seem to have to go
to the other extreme if you want to be self-employed.
Where great, you can go self-employed.
But the big question and the point of anxiety is where, where
am I going to get my customers from?
And you don't have that lead source.
So I think it provided an opportunity to grow a model
where we can attract self-employed brokers who want
to benefit from a lead source but also want independence.
And I'm not ashamed to say, you know, I probably stole quite a
lot of good ideas from Nexpad I think what they do really well
is they allow people to operate under their own personal brands.
So just like Nexpad it's Stuart there powered by Nexpad insist
on our guys having two years experience.
And I think social media, I, I know you're probably going to
say estate agents don't use it enough.
If it's, you know, if estate agents don't use it enough,
look, look at mortgage brokers. There's very little content out
there. And I think there's a, a huge
opportunity for, for mortgage brokers to align with agents,
Exp agents and, and promote themselves in their own way.
And, and of course, the advocates and ambassadors for
each other's business. So we've already, we've already
got some success stories actually, where our local
brokers have referred valuation business to Exp agents.
And of course, you know, it's, it's great helping you with your
mortgage enquiries and help helping you win some mortgage
sign up Commission. But actually if I helped you win
an instruction, you, you, you love me and you're wedded to me.
So, yeah, that, that I suppose that's the background and that's
I thought it's such a huge opportunity and and something
that I don't think has, well, I've certainly not seen it done
in the industry. Cool, right?
There's a few things I want to try and remember on what you
said and go back over. So one of the things you said
there about the success that Adam and Exp has had, I mean,
you'd be a fool not to not to spend time looking at their
meteoric rise and go, okay, can we R&D RIP off and duplicate
some of this success? Right, No ideas out there
original. It's it's the ones who execute
something and do it their own way.
But I think have success like when I when I started, I was
like, well, let's go and you know, see what other people have
done inside outside of industry. I read a lot, I listen to a lot
of podcasts, I watch webinars. I go to events latest there I'm
in London for an event tomorrow. I'm in London for an event.
I like never stop learning. But you've then got to actually
execute and implement the stuff. Well, in terms of what you're
saying on you knowing if someone's in a two year or a
five year fixed rate, well, you know, six months before the end
of that, right, it's going to ping up on my CRM or whatever,
right. And now I'm going to contact
Simon. Hey, Simon, six months until we
rates up. Let's sit down, have a coffee,
go over your options, da, da, da, whatever.
Yeah, in estate agency, to your point, what typically happens is
I hand over the keys, congratulations to you on buying
your home, and then I just archive it because I do not have
a Scooby when you're going to be moving home in the near future.
Now, I've been to a couple of Mortgage Advice Bureau
conferences over the years, and I was astounded when I think
Peter Brodnicki had sat on stage and shared data on the
percentage of mortgage holders who would return to them.
Yes. Right after two years and I
can't remember the numbers, it was definitely more than half,
but it's like majority of people after two years are returning to
us and redoing their mortgage for us.
And I'm sat there going in estate agency, 15% of buyers
sell through the estate agent and they buy through.
Yep, yeah. And.
It's probably what on average 9 or 10 years, so it could be
quite, quite a long time before. But it's like there's, there's
so much data out there on this, but a really good, good one from
Zoop have looked at this data is there's like this sweet spot
between three and seven years where about 1/3 of sales happen.
So you're like, OK, if I know that there's a sweet spot of
people in their home three to seven years, maybe I should be
standing in contact with them because like, for example, I
bought my first house in 2016, a 2 up to down first time buyer.
If you look at the typical ladder of someone who buys their
first property, they're probably going to be in it for a few
years, then they go to the three bed, then they go to the four
bed. So it's maybe a fair bit of
activity in the first decade of ownership.
Then they'll fall off a Cliff because they go right, we've got
the forever home, raise the kids, we'll be out of here in 20
years. I don't think enough estate
agents, and I think this links in some mortgage size things as
well, understand the value of the lifetime customer like that
first time buyer in 2016 who then buys and sells in 2019.
That was me then he's looking to buy and sell in 2026.
I should have done it sooner. Maybe I'll be a landlord along
the way. There's multiple transactions
that have sales and purchase. And then to your point around
the mortgage side of things, anything else that might, might
come up in the meantime, But yeah, it's just fine.
Like in the essentially side of things, because we don't have a
fixed date on when someone is moving.
We go, well, if I don't know, I'm just guessing, so I'll just
archive them. But it's like, well, wish them a
happy birthday. Like you're going to have them,
you're going to have their date of birth and their ID, you know,
when they moved house, send them an anniversary card.
That's to send them a Christmas card each year.
That's three easy excuses to stay in contact with someone
every year without it feeling salesy.
Yeah, I mean, I've got some sympathy because there's a lack
of predictability and it's harder to, you know, guess when
you're going to get that reciprocal piece of business.
But if you're sitting on globe of data, why archive it?
You know, is there something better that can be done with it?
You'll probably know better than me, Simon.
But I mean, I know there's some great technology out there that
will help help help agents predict when certain customers
are more likely to, to, to move. So, you know, even if it's not
necessarily you picking up the phone and and investing your own
time in it, you know, can technology help you nurture that
data? Yeah, 100%.
There's that. There's definitely resources out
there for estate agents. You know, the data world we live
in that you touched on earlier where there are propensity to
move models, let's say where they're going.
Well, if you looked at, I'm trying to think now, if you
looked at how long I've lived in this home and you look at me and
my girlfriend and our ages and how, I don't know, earnings have
changed over time. I don't know exactly the
algorithm and propensity to move model, but a propensity to move
model should be screaming at an estate agent.
This car is selling like he's moving in the near future.
I can't remember the exact stat, but there's a crazy stat out
there like the the increased chance of someone moving in the
1st 12 months after they've had a baby.
But and then there's also stats around when someone retires,
they're so much more likely to move in the 1st 12 months.
And if they don't do it, they ain't moving.
They even move when they retire or they'll be taken out there in
a box, as bad as that sounds. So tippies go down, go down to
the maternity ward with a stack of business cards.
But you but you got it. You you joke, but it's it's it's
hanging around in the right places.
I'm a, I'm a big fan of Ryan Serhant in in America.
And he says in like one of his books, like he would go and hang
around where he thought set bars and sellers hung around before
they needed a realtor. And like he'd be in this queue
at Starbucks and he'd see a lady who's quite clearly pregnant and
he'd like jokingly go any, any chance you maybe need to upsize
this? You got a little one on the way.
I'm a realtor. Here's my card.
Yeah. Like, and then there's so many
like there's techniques, strategies for I speak with
estate agents about on how they can potentially be marketing to
someone before they realise they need an estate agent.
Like for example, EPC register on the on the EPC register and
everyone knows the like the most common EPC register, there's an
alternative EPC register and in the back end it tells you why
that EPC has been done. Is it a new build?
Is it to sell? Is it to rent, etcetera.
You don't check that EPC register and it goes, oh, look,
100 Smith St. had an EPC done for sale purposes.
That's weird. It's not on right move.
Maybe that's someone gearing. I'm getting ready to sell.
Well, I'm now going to check my database.
That's weird. Stuart from 100 Smith St.
I sold a house to him 10 years ago.
He's just had an EPC done. He didn't do that with me.
I'm going to give him a call and if I don't if I don't know who
Stuart is, I'm sending a letter to your house or I'm doing
marketing about like there's there are there are clues and
I'm God, I wrote it down the other day.
So I'm a big fan of Tony Robbins and he speaks about patterns and
he says that first of all you got to spot patterns, then you
use patterns, then you create patterns.
OK, that's interesting. And to give you a very quick
example, because I'm conscious I'm going off a bit of a mad
tangent now, this will be probably 10 years ago.
You know how Zoopra have got their like estimates so people
can go and find out the estimate of their home.
There are now over 6,000,000 home owners across the UK who
are tracking their home on Zoopla.
To understand the value, which is a huge amount of people.
About 10 years ago they did something on Zoopla called Tempt
Me Price. People could go on track, log
their home track here and put a Tempt Me Price.
I remember that, yeah. Yeah, I went on to Zoopla when I
was running a branch and found 10 houses in my area that were
on there as a temporary price. And I basically wrote a letter,
had a brochure and delivered it to them.
Eight people never responded to me.
One told me to piss off. They rang me up and said, where
did you get my details from? So you literally put on a public
website that you're looking to sell.
This is the price I'd sell at. So I'm contacting you to say
maybe I can help you. And then one person, another one
came back to me and I sold their house.
It was literally a, a free website showing me people who
are thinking of moving like it's it, it wasn't rocket science.
So sorry, I've gone off on a on a mad tangent there.
Something I want to go back on though.
You, you mentioned that social media, and this might be a
really, really stupid comment from me, but is it harder for a
mortgage broker to use social media compared to an estate
agent? Because like regulations you've
got about giving advice on like interest rates and stuff like
that. Yeah, there's a little bit more
governance around it. So for instance, you need
disclaimers in anything that you put a call to action into the
customer. So if, if, if you're saying
contact me, follow me on social media, you need to disclaimer
there. I mean, I, I sometimes thinks
those types of social media are a little bit more crass anyway.
I think, you know, the social media that I engage best with is
something that educates you on, you know, on the industry,
whether it be estate agency or mortgage services.
And I think some organisations, you know, certainly if you're
working for a big corporate, you're not going to be given a
leash to go and do whatever you want on social media.
I mean, I dare say even in your time at you work for a local
agent, you know, 9 or 10 branches, you probably weren't
allowed to do too much on your own on social media at the time.
Quick, quick story on that, but I really shared numerous times
before on the podcast. I remember probably a dozen
years ago now, maybe closer to 15, we had to sign a contract
saying we'd not bring the company into disrepute on social
media. We'll not mention where we work.
Yeah. And at the time it, you know,
kind of makes sense because that was an era of, you know, I'm
like late teens at that point, early 20s, where you may be
going out to a bar or a club on a Friday, Saturday night and
they've got the club photographers and you're there
like absolutely obliterated. You don't like want that on your
profile and then someone's searching you when they're
sending £1,000,000 house. So you kind of get that, but
then it's mad in terms of like, we do not want you to be like
sharing that information. Then you look to them, you go,
well, actually you want you want you.
You want your people to shout proudly from a rooftop where
they work. There's someone who's just left.
I've seen it numerous times, but someone who's just left the
company where I used to work and they've just absolutely smashed
it on social media. They're very active on
Instagram. I'm like, well, they weren't
using that when they're employed.
Yeah, and. And they've got like a, a new
lease of life and they're picking up what appears to me
loads of business through social media.
And you're like, if that business had let them do that,
perhaps they wouldn't have lost that person.
They would have been generating more business.
And I think that's the other thing about the self-employed
model. You, you, you look at social
media content, the, the largest proportion of it seems to come
from those agents from a self-employed background.
And I think there's a huge opportunity for mortgage brokers
to operate in the same way. You see a little bit and
there's, yeah, there's, I could probably count on one hand sort
of the, you know, the, the good content providers from a
mortgage broker world. But there's, there's a huge
opportunity to engage with your local community and also
culturally aligned with the guys we're working with, with Exp
that, you know, they need to see that, you know, we're, we're,
we're in their shoes, You know, we're promoting our business and
ourselves in our local marketplace.
But equally, we're liking and sharing what they do and helping
them grow, grow their business and helping them promote their
properties. And how, how have you factors
when, when did you, when did you launch?
When did you? Was it February?
We yeah, it started in February and went public in March.
OK, so we're, we're a few months into new business.
How? How have you?
How have you found things? It's, it's been a big shift in
mindset going from an environment where I've been
looking after a vast number of employed people.
So yeah, I think what I've had to do is be very, very adaptable
in terms of making sure that these guys have got the autonomy
that they joined me for, but making sure that I'm providing A
supportive environment, make sure that we've got a bit of an
in it together mentality. And we're, yeah, we've got our
own WhatsApp group. We have calls every week, we
discuss the inevitable teeth in problems that you have with a
new business. And I think, I think I've done
this quite successfully. That's the feedback I've had
anyway. But our most important customer
is the agent. And I think what I was quite
clear on when I first started with the self-employed model,
you could just go and recruit the market and recruit anybody
with a heartbeat because whether they're mega successful or they
fail, you're still making a margin.
But but to me that that first cohort of advisors was really,
really crucial. I knew if my recruitment wasn't
pin sharp and the agents don't get that first class experience
in terms of speed and communication and promising what
we delivered, they would they would turn around and say to
their colleagues, well, yeah, don't, don't, don't bother about
Stuart. There's next pad crown.
So I've been really fortunate, I suppose with my contacts over
the years that, you know, the first cohort of brokers that I'm
working with are people that I've known a very long time that
I trust. Quite, quite a lot of them have
also been self-employed. So there's, you know, a few of
them that perhaps work for a corporate 10-15 years ago have
gone out on their own and gone self-employed.
So I think a little bit of adaptability in it.
I've also loved getting a lot closer to the front line as
well, though it feels like I've had a chance to get my hands a
bit dirty, you know, role play conversations with customers,
role play conversations with agents and, and do some of that
really good frontline coaching that I've really, really
enjoyed. The amount of times I think I, I
hear someone say similar to what what you've just been alluding
to, where you get to a very senior position in the business
and you're, so you're so far removed from the frontline.
It's spreadsheets and meetings. You're not actually doing the
things you're really, really good and passionate about and
like, and then they they get a new lease of life when they go
do it themselves and and get closer to it.
In terms of the self-employed mortgage brokers.
Let's a hypothetical scenario, and I think this translates
through to estate agency as well.
Let's say I've been a mortgage broker for a large multi branch
independent estate agent around the sort of area.
I've been doing it a few years and I've heard you on this
podcast and I like, I like, I like what he has to say and I
want to be part of that. And I join where, where does
that person go to go and start getting business?
Like what would their, what their first few weeks look like
when they're sat on 9:00 AM on a Monday morning at their desk at
home at the kitchen table and gone, right?
What do I do now? What's that?
What's that look like? So, so typically what their
journey would look like is once they've joined us, I would set
up calls with 345 Exp agents. And yeah, have a, have a
partnership. We're fortunate that we've got
lots of Exp agents that are willing to adopt the model where
where I'm being quite careful. If I go and switch on the world
and I've only got 2 brokers, we just won't be able to deliver.
So, so typically I would match them with those brokers.
They'd perhaps set up a weekly call, they'd spend a little bit
of time with their Exp colleagues.
I'd spend some time with them just to make sure that they
understand the culture. Clawed AI is unbelievable.
Yeah, we've got an overnight sweep set up which tracks all
the changes in status on any Exp property, which enables the
broker to pick up the phone to the agent, say, yeah, great
news, I see you've just had this new one on the market or you've
just had this withdrawn or just had that sold and they received
2 tiers of Commission. So I think we're not looking for
the type of broker that's got that feed me mentality and
thinks, well, I want a piece of the action.
I'll just sit at a laptop and wait for an Exp agent to refer
to me. That's not how it works.
But if they're willing to partner properly and align
properly with those 3 or 4 agents, we're we're starting to
see a decent leave flow from those.
But we also expect our brokers to be going out there promoting
themselves under their personal brands.
So so far we've we've written as much mortgage business from the
consultants own sources, self promotion and client bank then
we have to be Nexpad Say, say, say that again.
Sorry you've. We've written as much business
from the the brokers own sources as we have from Exp.
So I think it's a huge opportunity.
It's great opportunity to plug brokers in to an Exp lead
source. But one of my pet hates are
brokers with that feed me mentality that that just want to
rock up, sit behind a laptop, not really talk to anybody and
expect the leads to come through.
That's not what it is. But for estate agency aligned
brokers that are willing to build relationships, you know,
working in the agents world and meet them in their world,
there's been a huge opportunity. And obviously from EXPS point of
view, we've had some great testimonials from agents talking
about our speed, our communication, our referral of
instruction. So yeah, if you're listening,
pick up the phone, find me on LinkedIn, have a chat with me,
and we'll talk about the next steps.
And you said earlier about well typically I pass a lead to a
traditional mortgage broker, let's say outside of because I
don't have financial services within my state industry.
I pass over to John Smith, he pays me a referral fee.
But then for the next 5-2 year fixed rates over a decade, John
keeps getting repeat business. But I don't see anything from
that. But what I gathered and correct
if I'm wrong is that if there were five different 2 year fixed
rates over the next decade, you'd be going there's your
check sign, there's your check sign, there's your check sign.
Absolutely, right. Yeah.
And that's where there's a huge opportunity to fit for agents to
earn from that guaranteed, well, not guaranteed, but the
retention rates are 6065% those remortgage opportunities.
So I mean, a good way to think of it is if you know, if you're,
if you're averaging even a modest 30 or 40 mortgage
completions a year as an agent, that should be worth 20 to 25
guaranteed opportunities in two to five years where you'll see
income coming back into your business.
And I'd just challenge any agent listening, you know, review,
review your broker relationship. Are you getting lifetime
Commission And you know, do you have any shareholding or any
equity in, in that business? Because the value of that data
is, is sky rocketing. The value of mortgage
businesses. It's, it's very easy, I think as
a mortgage broker to sort your retirement plans out and, and,
and build an exit strategy. And what if, if I can ask this,
what does, what does a sort of typical Commission look like if
I passed someone over to you who does a mortgage?
I don't know, borrows 250 grand. Yeah, yeah.
The average Commission will vary depending on you know whether
whether insurance is has been sold the size of mortgage but
but so far our average fee is around about the 2000 LB mark.
And as it hang on more as in what you're paying out or what
you're. Sorry, that's, that's the,
that's the gross. So what you're saying is what,
what, what's it worth? What's it worth in the agent's
pocket? Correct.
Yeah. Yeah, what, what it's worth in
the agent's pocket probably ranges between 450 and £700.
The the other important point and, and this was a real ask
from Adam Day when we were putting the proposition
together. Adam knows how much Commission
that brokers make from life insurance business and they
rarely pay that out to the agents.
So we've, you know, Adam drove a hard bargain and insisted that
we include life insurance Commission in there as well.
So I'm, I'm selfishly being on the agent side.
Yeah, I'm going to say rightly so.
I remember when I got my first mortgage and reading through
like the paperwork from the mortgage broker, I was like, how
much is he earning off life insurance?
I was like, this is this is crazy.
And that was that was an old, old family friend.
And I was like, all right, now makes sense why he's always done
all right for himself. All this money is earning enough
off life insurance. I was like when when I was an
agent, you know, when you would say to someone, yeah, God, I've
not, I've not tried to offer someone financial service for a
while now. But you know, the classic, who
have you spoken to so far with regards to funding your purchase
or what comparisons have you made or the classic open-ended
questions. And when someone goes, I've got
a family friend who's a mortgage broker, you go, what a load of
bollocks. Like you just, that's just,
that's just an objection to try and get me, get me off the
phone, whatever. And when I bought my first house
through a very large estate agency, they were trying to get
me to sit in front of a mortgage broker trying to get me
financially qualified, saying it'd be in the best light for my
offer to go forward, all that sort of stuff.
And I'm just like, I'm in the industry, like I know the
school, like here is my mortgage broker's details.
Here's my ARP, here's my proof of funds.
Like there you go. But I was the classic.
I was like, no, no, my family friend is a mortgage broker.
So like I literally whilst I was passing business to the mortgage
broker within the estate agency I worked at, I was like, I'm so
sorry mate, but when I do buy my first house, I'm not doing the
mortgage for you. But one, it's like I don't want
to mix my personal life with for work, which I think is fair.
But I was always like this this guy who's known me from being a
baby, he's like one of my dad's closest friends.
He will look after me. I'm going to do my mortgage for
him. And I said to the he's now
retired. So I said to the mortgage
broker, once he's retired, you'll have my business, which
he now does. Anyway, rambled on there.
Again, in terms of mortgages, I think it'd be remiss of me not
to talk about the mortgage market and interest rates when
I've got some of your experience and expertise on the podcast.
So for the benefit of the listeners, we are recording this
on the 21st of May. So if we went back three months
ago and you're kind of right at the start of the business.
Yep. Interest rates have sort of
steadily been coming down for a couple of years.
Then at the end of February, we have the conflict obviously
start in the Middle East and then we've seen interest rates
shoot up very kind of rapidly. They've started to sort of creep
down a little bit over over recent weeks from that height
they hit. But what does, what does the
mortgage market look like in Stuart Dare's opinion, from from
an interest rate perspective and amount of products out there,
shelf life on products, all that sort of stuff?
Yeah, I think, I think we're hitting a sweet spot.
What we've seen over the last few years is I think the markets
overreact every time there is a geopolitical event.
I mean, if you look at what happened after the mini budget
rates went crazy and then came back to normality.
The same thing happened after the tariff announcements and the
same thing happened after the the conflict in February.
I think we saw the markets overreact and rates went up a
percent. We've seen an easing of swap
rates. I think we saw a reduction in
swap rates this week. So we're not down to where we
were pre February, but we're somewhere between the two.
The interesting thing for me in the last couple of weeks is
we've seen, I think the biggest hurdle for first time buyers
isn't necessary affordability getting the mortgage, it's the
deposit. And we've seen Lloyds Banking
Group bring out products with a £5000 deposit.
We've seen Santander with, you know, £10,000 deposit.
So you know, these, these are potentially options that that
will allow customers to proceed with less than a 5% deposit.
So I don't think we're going back to the Northern Rock
together days. Borrow 120% of the value of the
house. But I think there's some lenders
coming up with some innovative, innovative solutions to help
first time buyers get on the ladder with very, very low
deposits. And affordability wise, I think
I think there's some great affordability in the market at
the moment. I've got a real beer in my
bonnet about the, you know, how the media talk about the housing
market and the mortgage market and how the media talk about
over inflated house prices. I, I put something on LinkedIn
recently, but if you factor in inflation versus house prices,
house prices are cheaper now than at any point they've been
since 2003. And, and if you consider the
astronomical inflation that we've had since COVID and the
fact that prices have almost been flat, when you look at real
prices, they may have stayed flat, maybe crept up three, 4%.
Sorry, nominal prices are prepped up three, 4%.
But factor in inflation, we're, we're probably 20% down from the
peak. I sincerely, I sincerely feel
we're towards the bottom of the price cycle.
We've had no, no artificial interference such as stamp duty,
holidays, help to buy. There's nothing that's
artificially stoked the market. I think the market's found its
place. Rates are kind of of kind of
stabilised where they where they are.
I don't think we're going to get any huge rises or huge cuts.
It wouldn't surprise me if base rate's the same at the end of
the year as it is now. But I think there's great
affordability out there in the market.
And I think we're towards the bottom of the price cycle.
And I say this sincerely because my eldest son's 20 and I'm
telling him this. I think it's a great time to
buy. Interesting.
I love, love everything and just been saying that.
And obviously the media sell bad news, right?
That's that's what gets people's attention.
When was when was the last time you picked up a newspaper,
Simon? Or, or, or read something online
and it talked about a booming housing market or talked about a
great housing market? I can't remember.
I can't remember reading anything.
Yeah. It's why I try and like when I
put data out, I try and I am a glass half full kind of guy when
it comes to property market. I think I talk with realistic
positivity or realistic optimism rather than being a bit
negative. But like on the affordability
side of things, like you said, lenders being more innovative
when you've got the stress testing being eased from where
it was. And like you said, we're not
back to where we were in 2008. But then also we've got the
biggest transference of wealth the world has ever seen going on
from like a baby boomer generation.
And you say about that difficulty with deposit.
I completely get that there is going to be difficulties out
there, but there are so many grandparents and parents.
So Bank of mum and dad who are going, well, there's the 50
grand or whatever for a deposit. Like when you look at the
average deposit of a first time buyer, like it's insane.
And then it's your point on the affordability, like a nationwide
house price index coming out every month and they look at the
25 year long term sort of average of affordability.
I'm like it says affordability is very average right now and on
what you're saying about the base rate as well, if it does
frustrate me a lot when I see estate agents put posts out
after the MPC has met and if a base rate has gone up or down
and they're like, this is what it's done to your mortgage.
You know, that's not the, the thing impacting the interest
rates yesterday, people on, on the variable, for example, But
it's like, I don't know what, 80, probably 85%, maybe 90% of
mortgages are fixed where it's, it's irrelevant what just
happened to to the rate that day.
But I put out a post I think a few weeks ago now when the MPC
paused at 3.75% and I'd said that whilst the public and down
the pub will be like, God, that's so high, isn't it?
I tried to offer some sort of substance of, well, actually if
you're comparing it to 2009 to 21, then yes, it does seem high.
But when you look at the massively long term average of
closer to 6% actually looks very normal.
So I'm, I'm keen to find out from you if you actually, you've
kind of got what we're trying to say here.
You've got pre crash and post crash in terms of like a base
rate and where people's blood bias on this goes 09 to 21.
If you're somebody bought a house in that period and all
you'd known was a base rate below 2%, which was its first
time in history. Anything above 2% you could go.
That's expensive. No, no, what you should be
saying is, my God, it used to be really cheap, didn't it?
It's not expensive now it's normal.
So like in your earlier years in this business, so kind of turn
the Millennium before the crash happened, I'm assuming the base
rate we see now, the interest rates we see of what you were
seeing in your early days, right?
Well, I, I, I, I'm sure when I started out, the base rate was 6
1/2 percent. And I remember colleagues
jumping through hoops celebrating the fact that the
rates are lower now than they've been at any time for the last 10
years. So 6 1/2% was, was deemed to be
super, super cheap. And I think 33 to 4% is is still
really, really cheap money. Yeah, is it?
Yeah, you look at the long term trend, it is cheap.
But I think the, the point I've been trying to get across to a
lot of agents I've speaking to recently is that imagine for a
second you were someone who bought their first home in 2021
and it was, I don't know, A2 up to down and you got a five year
fix. Now, in that five years you've
had a kid and now you want to go buy a bigger house, you want to
borrow more money. So you're coming off that five
year fix at a nice low rate and then you come forward.
Now you go bloody hell, my mortgage is going to be a lot
more money than what I've been used to paying.
Now I've got an extra mouth to feed, I'll need to borrow an
extra 200 grand, need to up size.
All of a sudden they go bloody hell, my mortgage is like double
what I've been used to. Now probably they've, you know,
gone up the corporate ladder, they've earned more money with
wage growth, whatever. What I'm trying to say to agents
is that we haven't got that artificial inflation to the
market, like you said, of stamp duty, holiday, help to buy,
etcetera. You got these buyers with a lot
more choice than they had a few years ago.
Their money's not going as far. So they're willing and happy and
able to buy, but only at the right price.
And if they see it, if they see it on that stupid money, there's
so much data out there these days, they'll just go, I'm not
buying that. That's stupid money.
It'll probably reduce in a few months.
Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that.
I think it's, yeah, it is a buyer's market.
And I'm looking, looking at the recent right move stats, I think
they talked about we're at a 9 or 1010 year high in terms of
stock on the market. But but as you've rightly
pointed out, you know that the right property presented right
and priced right is still selling.
And if you look at sales volumes year on year, I think last week
was the busiest sales we we've had so far in 2026.
So it's still, whilst it's, whilst it's perceived in some
areas to be a buyer's market, it's still, it still feels like
there's a lot of activity out there.
There's there's definitely activity.
I, I say it a lot, you've got either you can call it A2 speed
or A2 tier market. So half the market sells, half
the market doesn't, the half the market that doesn't sell is that
because of the conflict and interest rates?
And no, it's because they're on it too much money and not being
marketed correctly. And because they're on it too
much money and not marketed correctly, they're making the
other half who do sells life's easier because the others look
really bad value for money. They make them look even better.
And yeah, we've had a couple of very good sales weeks recently,
but I saw someone earlier today about controller controllables.
You've got all this ship show nationally, internationally,
politics, economically, etcetera.
Controller controllables, there will always be an excuse out
there. If I had a pound for every time
I hear an agent say it's half term, it's a bank holiday, it's
raining, interest rates are higher, Donald Trump pressed a
button, the next thing is going to be it's the World Cup.
So everyone's watching that. So not like busy buying hat.
There is always going to be an excuse we can be using, but just
stay in your own lane, control what you can control and people
are going to be buying some houses.
Yeah, what? What one of my one of my pet
hates, the one that I used to hate hearing was that sounds
like a great idea, but that won't work in my town.
My customers won't think, won't, won't engage with that.
I used to call it my town mentality.
So, yeah, OK. I am.
I'm absolutely stealing that line, my town mentality because
I talk a lot about two of the most dangerous sentences in the
estate agency world are that will never work in my market or
we've always done it this way. Yeah.
And every agent I come across and I would have been guilty as
back in the day, but they will always say, you know, it's not
like that where I am, Simon. Everyone undercuts on fees and
they overvalue on price. Yeah, like.
If I had a pound for every corner of the UK I've been to
where they say it's tougher in my town, my town mentality, I am
stealing that. Thank you very much, Stuart.
Right. OK, so before we get onto the
final question of the podcast, I should have asked this earlier
on in the conversation, but I'm intrigued by the medals over
your right shoulder. So what are those what appear to
be 1000 medals for over your shoulder?
I've, I've, I've only turned my desk this way because the rest
of this room is an absolute mess.
So this is the only tidy bit. I'm I'm a keen runner.
So you know, I've run London Marathon lots of 55 KS, 10 KS
used, used to be pretty, pretty nifty.
So I've done, I've done sub three hours at London Marathon
and we podiumed at a couple of races, but pushing 50 now, so
not as not as quick as I used to be.
You must have been very impressed at the 2 hour mark
being broken at the London Marathon this year and I think
two others two others did it as well as the guy who won.
You, you, you feel sorry for the guy who came second.
So yeah, he broke. He broke two hours and yeah, no
one's thought. Yeah, it's as a as a Liverpool
fan, it pained me when like under Yogen Klopp, there is a
couple of times we lost the league title to City on like 92
and 97 points. And if you look over the years,
how many times Liverpool would have won a league tights on
those points totals. But if someone's got more than
more points than there's not a lot you can do.
I can't help but think from the running side of things, Stuart,
how you know I'm not a runner, Like I'm definitely not.
But you know, did anyone ever think 2 hours could be beaten a
bit like Roger Bannister? You know, you'll never be able
to do a mile under 4 minutes or whatever it is.
But yeah, I think after Roger Bannister did it, loads of
people followed afterwards. So I can't help but think that
for my town mentality, whether it's a state agency or mortgage
broker site, I'll never be able to charge 2% in my town or I'll
never be able to, I don't know, get get a seller to pay a fee
upfront or I'll never get them to sign up to do auction or
reservation agreements or or whatever it is.
It's like, well, someone always had to be first, right?
I think there's a huge link between sports psychology and
business psychology and self limiting beliefs.
Yeah, I'm, I'm not naturally, genetically the best runner.
But. What I am prepared to do is I'm
probably prepared to hurt myself quite a lot more.
I'm prepared to push myself into those uncomfortable zones.
And I think relating that to the business world, it's not always
the most talented person that succeed.
It's, it's, it's the person that's prepared to be, get
comfortable with the uncomfortable, that's, you know,
prepared to push themselves out of their comfort zone and
venture into new, new territory and be curious and, and try
things. I'm not saying go and invent the
wheel and burn a load of cash on the next big, big, big idea, but
you know, when you, when you, when you hear that idea and
you're on the fence about it, what have you got to lose?
You know, just sample it. Just try it.
Just try it on, try it out. Because until, until you test
the water, you're never going to know whether it really works in
your market. And if, if you think, if you
think that's not right, that won't work.
Do you know what? You're probably right and you're
right because of yourself. Limited belief.
Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't,
you're right. Much better way of putting it,
yeah. And I think there's a couple of
things that came to mind in, in terms of your keenness for
running. You must, you must be buzzing
when you like met Roger Black and spending time with Roger
and, and, and some, some of the things you were saying made me
think of the conversations I've had with Roger and I've had
Roger on the podcast and, and he's a brilliant mindset to
listen to you and take in, like you said, that sport to
business. And I couldn't help but think of
the other obvious story of Dick Fosbury and the Fosbury flop.
Do you know that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He. Was straddle, wasn't it?
People jump completely different, you think?
Yeah. You think now, and I don't know
how you know that was many decades ago, but you imagine
showing, I don't know, a teenager who's doing athletics
at school who does jump, does the high jump.
And you showed them a video of how people used to jump over a
high jump before the Fosbury Flop.
They'd be like, what the hell are they doing?
Jumping over it forwards And obviously the first time he does
it, runs up and jumps over it backwards.
Everyone would be like, who the hell is this idiot?
Like, what on earth is he doing? And then obviously the studies
on it and then how many people started doing it?
And then everyone does it. And again, on your point, I
couldn't help but think of some of the strategies I'd share with
the state agents when they're like, does that strategy work?
I'm like, no idea. I've just said I've got an idea,
give it a go. It might be terrible, or it
might be a Fosbury Flop where it then goes on to be the next
thing that Asians do. Yeah, I, I, I think the world
word culture's sort of bandied around quite a lot and a lot of
people don't really know what, how to create culture.
But, but, but that's a big one for me because I think your
behaviour is so, so, so, so infectious.
And I've probably seen that both ways.
I've learnt a lot over the years, not just by talking to
people and asking people questions, but you'll sit in a
meeting or you'll sit across from a branch and you'll see
somebody speak to a customer or you'll see the way that they
chair a meeting. And you think, actually that
worked. I like that.
And you, you find, you find yourself replicating that
behaviour. And I see leaders who talk
about, well, you know, I want a culture of, you know, strong
work ethic and honest conversations.
Well, that's, that's great. But those are just words.
But if as a leader you're not seen as somebody who's working
really hard, and if as a leader you're having a lazy numbers 1
to one with, with your reports and not helping them, not giving
them coaching, not genuinely caring about them, all they're
probably going to go and do is replicate that and do exactly
the same with their reports as well.
So I think culture is about the way you act, not just words, but
actually walking the walk and, and doing that yourself, which,
which sounds really basic. But Libya is so, so infectious
to those around you, whether you're a leader or whether
you're not a leader. You know, even if, even if
you're a colleague in the branch, if, if you, when you,
when you hear people talk about there's a toxic culture here,
the fact they say that they're probably a big part of that
toxic culture. But I, I can, I'm, I can tell
when I walk into essentially businesses within a second, but
that's a good culture or not. You can just, you can just feel
it. And you made me think of a
couple of things. I can't remember who said that.
I was in the newsletter. I was reading.
When you're observing your business, look at the youngest
or most experienced members of your team and how will they act?
Because they're, they're getting that from someone else, someone
else more senior than them or someone who's been there for
longer. And I also thought of managers
within the, you know, the business I was in where they're
telling you, yeah, I need to hit your figures, blah, blah, blah,
blah. It gets to Friday afternoon,
right? See you later.
I'm off now. You're like, it's all right, I'm
going to cover for you. Am I at the boss rings?
But like, where, where are you appointment or they never work
on weekends, never work on the bank holiday.
They always take Christmas off. And you're like, you're not
leading, leading by by example there, right?
Sure. I have a closing tradition on
the podcast, which you'll know because you've listened to a
couple of episodes. OK, they I'm going to ask you a
random question from Stephen Bart, the star of the CEO
conversation cards. OK, right.
The question I want you to answer is what is 1 event
conversation or experience that was your AHA light bulb that
influenced or changed your life? It's a great question.
Wow. I'm assuming.
I mean, this conversation has changed your life, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The conversation at Swingers.
Wow. You're going to have to give me
a moment. You'll probably have to edit
this pause out, Simon. I don't do Edison Stewart.
I'm lazy. It could be personal, it could
be professional, it could just be the first thing that comes to
your mind rather than overthinking it.
It could be something really like simple that might not even.
This, this was probably a very hard time, but a very valuable
lesson and probably probably a turning point when I sort of
understood leadership and what leadership was all about.
I was given my first opportunity to run an area back in 2005.
And I think at the time I was really successful consultant
working out of the Milton Keynes branch and my area manager had
gone on maternity leave. So I was given the opportunity
to do a hybrid role. So you're going to area manage
55 consultants and you're still going to sign business 2 weeks
into my, my boss going on on maternity leave, three of those
brokers all decided to hand in their resignation and all went
to go self-employed together and they happened to be in Stevie
kitchen net worth, which was a cluster of branches.
So it completely obliterated this area caused me a huge
problem and I thought, well, this is my, this is my chance to
prove myself, you know, while my boss is on maternity leave, what
on earth am I going to do now? And I, I count myself out of
Stevenage branch. I think I, I, you know, wrote a
bucket load of mortgages that month, but I had to go out and
recruit my own people. And it was probably the best
thing that ever happened to me because, you know, I surrounded
myself with people that were like minded to me, people that
shared my values and people that were excited on about this
project and our vision to be the most successful area within the
group. And I think two of those
recruits, this was 20 years ago, are still with Connell's group
now really successful sales managers, sales directors.
And that was probably the light bulb moment that actually this
is a people business and this is about surrounding yourself with
the right people. Love that I, my first branch
manager job was the lady who ran the branch, went on maternity
leave and it's like, right, you've got an opportunity now to
go run that branch as a designate, see how you get on.
And it came towards the end of the year, like absolutely
smashed it because I was just fuelled by adrenaline and a
point to prove. And then she didn't come back.
I think she was maybe pregnant with her second kid, said, yeah,
I'm not coming back. And then the, the, the job was
mine. So I, I resonate with that sort
of light bulb moment. Well, it's been a, a brilliant
conversation. Stuart thoroughly enjoyed it and
it's good to have a conversation outside of our swingers
environment as well. Yeah.
And let's. See you at the next event.
Yeah, for everyone listening, please do like review,
subscribe, follow, share. Do go check out Stuart on
LinkedIn if you curious to find out more about everything he's
been talking about. And that just leaves me to say
it's Stuart. Thank you very much for being an
amazing guest. Really appreciate it.
Thanks. Lovely talking to you.
See you.