Similarly, we have chosen fantastic sites for our offices in really special parts of south-west London. As these elements have come together, the business has always attracted quality instructions. It doesn’t matter if it is a studio flat, a 300-unit scheme or a £10,000,000 house, people have come to associate us with the very best sales and lettings stock on the market. Our offices cover Battersea, Clapham, Wandsworth, Tooting, Balham, Earlsfield, Streatham, Wimbledon Park and Southfields.
We signed the lease on the Northcote Road shop pretty much the day Northern Rock began to slide down the pan in September 2007. We opened the doors in Jan 2008; the bleakest of bleak months. We had a handful of properties on loan from friendly agents and mates who’d taken a punt on selling or renting through us, so we switched on the lights and the market duly slid off a cliff. God, it was horrific. No one knew quite what was going on, as we all shuffled the deckchairs around the listing deck of the good ship London Property.
Things were falling so fast you couldn’t fix a price…
We sold a good four-bed house off Northcote Rd for £700,000 for a city analyst who’d said we were only half-way down the dip; it had been worth around £925,000 the year before…
That spring we framed our first commission cheque and gradually began to cash in others, but as the year progressed things got worse. By autumn, Lehmans had gone and taken most of the market rationality with it. By winter 08/09, we were down to three staff and had switched off the heating. So we smashed open the framed cheque and hurried down to the bank.
Joel and I fought daily, sometimes physically (generally I won)
We ate beans on toast for tea
My family and I moved to my parents’ place; Joel’s to a one-bed flat in Wandsworth
We ditched our cars and bought scooters. The company car became an eleven-year-old bright red Rover, obtained from Joel’s Dad’s rugby club
We spoke to therapists
We spoke to investors
We got onto first name terms with the bar staff at The Eagle
However, as the market bounced along the bottom of the trough, there was an awful lot of goodwill coming from the good people of Northcote Rd (they like their independent retailers they do) and bits and bobs came our way. We survived. And then the market turned, and we turned with it. We began to grow and were able to rebuff further approaches from investors.
By 2012 we were up to 11 staff and The Digital Property Group did some research.
They calculated that in 2011 we had sold just over 40% of all houses between the commons (our nearest rival sold around 15%). We were top of the heap (and according to recent Rightmove stats, still are).
In spring 2012 we acquired a local competitor, and by 2021 our Lettings acquisitions had risen to four, and our Land and New Homes department had opened.
In 2017 we opened our second sales office and by mid-2022 we had five sites accommodating over 50 good people of RB.
Today, we have six offices housing over 60 people including a dedicated Lettings team and a thriving new operation in Earlsfield cementing our position as market leaders around the commons.
Only ever go into business during a global recession with a very, very good friend, and one who’s not that good at fighting
All agents have pretty much the same marketing tools and website memberships, but like any business it’s your staff who really matter
There really are an awful lot of nice normal people living in Wandsworth Borough
Nobody can call the market – that City analyst’s house is now worth around £1.75m
Flash cars aren’t important – people LOVED the Red Rover
We wouldn’t have missed it for the world