Fresh Futures
ESTATES GAZETTE
22/05/2010
By Nadia Elghamry
Starting again Nadia Elghamry speaks to property players in Yorkshire about the opportunities and challenges facing brand new companies
RESIGNED - WSB
Just over a year ago, Robin Beagley was faced with a decision. Should he give up the steady wage at Lambert Smith Hampton and forge out on his own or, with his wife now working part-time and a second child on the way, should he hunker down and wait for the recession to pass?
Beagley chose the former and, at the end of March last year, was put on three months' gardening leave. Together with David Watson (also formerly of LSH) and Duncan Senior (from CB Richard Ellis) the trio formed agency WSB.
"Some people thought we were mad to resign, but we were confident we'd make it work. Perversely, in this climate, there's a battle weariness among those left in some other firms, while we are a fresh-faced business."
Looking forward, although reticent to disclose figures, he says turnover will be "six figures, not seven figures".
The high point was signing one of the largest deals in Leeds this year, securing Yorkshire Water in 56,000 sq ft at Livingstone House at Clarence Dock. This helped the firm transact 104,000 sq ft of office space over the past 12 months.
The firm now has 370,000 sq ft of stock on the books in Leeds city centre and around 70,000 sq ft outside, and boasts a team of five, which will soon swell to six.
That is far from saying it has been an easy market. The Leeds agency scene has many mouths to feed and local players, although reticent to go on record, say that you need to only look at annual take-up figures to see that fees cannot support the number of agents.
"We say that all the time," says Beagley. "How the hell do some of those guys make money? But, that said, take-up in the city centre doesn't necessarily reflect where a lot of deals are getting done outside Leeds."
The business is self-financed, says Beagley, and the overheads are low. "It's a tough market and we were fully aware of that when we set up," he says. "We did a lot of financial planning and decided that we could do this, even if fees did not come through the door for a period of time."
