Century 21 Offers New Franchising Opportunities To Estate And Letting Agents

SDL, the property specialist group launches exciting new franchise offerings entirely dedicated to estate and block management.

SDL Property Partners, the company that operates Century 21 franchise in the UK is branching out of its build-to-rent sector to offer estate and letting agents who wish to diversify and expand their existing business an exciting new franchise opportunity. To all franchisees coming on board, Property Partners will provide the technology, business support and compliance they will need to expand and grow in the property industry.

In a recent interview with EYE, SDL Property Partner’s managing director, Nick Faulkner said: “We’ve designed it to be a ‘best of both worlds’ approach, offering a hybrid between the two very distinct camps that currently exist in the estate and block management sector.

“On the one side, you have sole practitioners doing a fantastic job, knowing the ins and outs of the buildings they look after, being on first-name terms with residents and having a great knowledge of the local area.

“However, it’s not uncommon to see one-man-bands struggling when it comes internal and customer facing systems and also keeping up with the 83 individual statutory compliance laws that property managers should be fully up to speed with.

“On the flip side, the large-scale corporates tend to have few gaps in their compliance knowledge.

“These well-oiled machines will have centralised and user-friendly services and deploy the latest technology; however, they are often criticised for being cold and disconnected when it comes to resident relationships. In effect, there is no personal service.

“We’re of the belief that the future of estate and block management can be found in the middle-ground between these two camps.”

Faulkner concludes the interview explaining the groups’ new Century 21 franchise marketing strategy: “Our initial marketing activity centred around a teaser campaign that we called ‘Ask Nick’. We focused on 1,600 property professionals and the first call we received was from an existing letting agent looking to provide additional services.

“We’ve had many questioning why letting and estate agents would want to venture into estate and block management, but it makes perfect sense for those wanting to create a one-stop shop.”