Coming to a High Street near you are bigger and better-staffed estate agency branches, if the results of a new survey are taken into account. Property company Nested questioned almost 1,000 estate agents this January to establish their attitudes to growth and expansion in 2022.
Of those participating in the survey, 70% of agents said they had an interest in expanding their business through additional premises and staffing at some point during the next 11 months. The majority said they chose to remain as there were in 2021, preferring to delay expansion plans until 2022.
Although activity looks set to increase this year, it doesn’t mean 2021 was a write off for all agents. When it came to a new office, 11% said they had already expanded their existing branch, while 3% had relocated to a larger office and 1% had opened an additional premises.
The post pandemic property boom – one that shows no sign of slowing down – has been cited as the reason behind plans to expand current branches or acquire new premises. As well as physical spaces, the Nested survey revealed that estate agents are expanding their workforces too.
Over a third of agents (35%) had already hired extra staff to keep up with increasing property demand. When it came to just how many new employees had been taken on, 11% had hired between 3 and 5 new members, with 3% employing 6 to 10 recruits and 6% appointing 11 or more new members of staff.
MPL Interiors is already working with estate and letting agents to help equip them for the year ahead. We are planning comprehensive refurbishment projects and designing brand new branches for agents across the country.
Our areas of expertise include:
- Replanning existing square footage to accommodate extra staff
- Creating new layouts that have built-in capacity to support further growth
- Working with acquisition teams to fit out brand new premises
- Designing flexi, hybrid workplaces for evolving attitudes to hours
Please contact us if you are one of the many agencies planning to grow and strengthen your network this year.
