‘We’re going to change how the public feel about estate agents’
After Steph Vass finished her GCSEs she began to annoy her mother, who ran the family’s 10-branch estate agency business in Liverpool. She was given a six-week summer job and, over 20 years on, Vass is now transforming the way homes are purchased and sold in the UK.
A conversation with Vass is littered with both property market statistics and plenty of passion in how she is currently challenging her industry. She does so as co-founder of The Agency UK (TAUK), a self-employed estate agency platform she set up in 2020 which lets experienced local agents run their own businesses.
The aim is to deliver a personable service to sellers across the UK and Vass believes the model is long overdue. “I am fiercely passionate and proud to be an estate agent,” she says. “For far too long it hasn’t necessarily been a career that people can feel that way about and we constantly feature in the top five most-hated professions.
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“I believe we are going to change the way the British public feel about estate agents and that it can be done in a credible and personal way.”
Music, however, was her original intention before she quit her short-lived degree at university. At 18, she went full-time into working at an estate agency thanks to a friend’s help and she started on the phones and undertaking viewings. “The girls I worked with at the time are now owners of the business which is great,” says Vass.
She took on a branch manager role aged 19, while music still plays a part today with a karaoke stage built at her home. Vass admits that with “no real room for growth” given that estate agent owners operated as “branch manager, valuer and head honcho”, she tweaked her CV to say that she had previous office manager experience.
In 2015, she joined Purplebricks where she learned brand growth and how technology started to play a role in the seller’s journey. Four years later she became head of recruitment in the US.
After speaking to thousands of agents over the years in both the UK and US, Vass has now set upon creating a model with TAUK’s agents “handholding” the buyer through the process. “They want a personal service from start to finish and you are the person helping them through it,” says Vass.
Her self-employed agents who have set up businesses under the TAUK umbrella have come from a variety of formats, the primary function being to stem costs and overheads of running a traditional agency business.
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She says the platform differs from a high street agency; the transactional process where buyers are passed through the chain from sales to contracts and which leads to a lack of communication. “Traditional estate agency is full of empty and broken promises and we are changing the tide on that,” says Vass.
TAUK agents earn a lion’s share of the commission, ranging between 60-70%. In the current landscape it takes an average 19 weeks from under offer to completion before moving day. The vast majority will also charge ‘no sale, no fee’.
“That’s six to nine months before earning a pay cheque,” says Vass, whose company has introduced advanced commission at two stages to allay any potential fears.
“As a business, we know it is life changing for agents and for clients. It really is the only style of estate agency where every stakeholder wins but if people can’t afford to do it? Do we accept any old person who can sell a house or devise a way to ease somebody into all the benefits of being self-employed?”
By the end of the year, TAUK will have grown to around 250 agents in England, Scotland and Wales since launch, with an annualised revenue run rate over £10m.
Vass is also part of a leadership team that includes Kenny Bruce and Harry Hill, co-founders of Purplebricks and Rightmove (RMV.L) respectively. A number of rival acquisitions has now bolstered TAUK’s stock as one of the UK’s largest self-employed platforms and part of its ‘buy to build’ strategy.
Vass says around 15% of any homeowner at any point would consider moving home across the UK. “On Rightmove (RMV.L) or Zoopla there is only ever 2% of property available in the UK. We have to open up the market and widen the audience and show people that the market doesn’t just move on [those] portals.
“I would love every homeowner to have the chance to be represented by a TAUK owner, in every town and village in the UK.”
Vass is also still selling homes on the platform in her home village of Aughton in Lancashire. She’s quick with a unique selling point too, with five Michelin stars across three restaurants on her doorstep.
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“I treat every single one of our agents as a business partner,” she says of her colleagues. “You have to be a brilliant marketeer, have some creative flair and get the houses in front of the right people.
“Around 50% of properties don’t go on to complete. You have to have nerves of steel and then be a bit of a psychologist or therapist at times.
“It can be a very emotional time and I have probably put people off becoming an estate agent. But there is nothing better than handing the keys over to a new family.”
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