Black Brick boss Camilla Dell lifts the lid on her growing business and the unusual housing markets it operates within.
By Nigel Lewis
One of London’s leading home buying agents has revealed that in the Capital’s prime areas, a staggering 40-50% of homes for sale are not advertised on the big portals.
The comments have been made by Camilla Dell (pictured), who is Managing Partner at the firm she launched 18 years ago – Black Brick – as she tells The Neg her plans for the future.
This includes expanding the business outside of the capital, which she has already begun with a recently-launched operation in the South West of England, but also plans to go into property management on behalf of the firm’s wealthy clients.
“We realised that a lot of our customers value and need that kind of service at the moment because they are probably spending less time in the UK following the recent changes to the ‘non-dom’ rules, so they need their homes looking after and struggle to find suitable vetted tradespeople and trusted property managers,” she says.
“As well as needing someone to look after them, they often want to rent them out and find suitable tenants and we can help there too.”
Dell also revealed the reasons why the ‘buying agent’ sector has seen expansion in recent years. This includes the ‘off-market’ status of more and more homes but also the more fragmented nature of the London estate agency market, which is now served by 7,000 or more firms many of whom work from home.
“Buyers can go to the obvious big brands to find their next home in prime London, but increasingly the home they want is being marketed by a smaller independent estate agency or a self-employed agent, both of whom aren’t so easy to track down,” she says.
Education
“When I first set up Black Brick I spent a lot of time educating the market about what a buying agent does and what value we as a business add – but 18 years later more buyers are aware of buying agents and what they offer; so it’s a much more well-known and commonly-accepted service.
“And it’s not just for the super-wealthy any longer – we look after clients with budgets starting from £1 million now whereas back in the day people thought buying agents were for those only with budgets in the tens of millions.
“In many parts of London these days that includes first time buyers looking for their first home, and we’ve had people like that spending up to £2 million.”
Competition
But Black Brick also has more competition than it did 18 years ago, and recently one high-profile estate agency announced it was setting up an in-house buying agency, something Dell is sceptical of.
“There’s a reason why companies like Knight Frank have completely separate and independent buying agency operations; otherwise there’s a conflict of interest particularly if its done under the same brand name as the sales division.”
Any readers interested in helping Dell expand her business outside London should email her direct.
