This is a personal message from Christopher May and Nahim Rahman co-founders of Residential People, with over 30 years of experience in the property and financial services industry for both B2B and B2C.
We at Residential People, have spent millions on our global property portal and have always been free to list, yet we believe that if we are to succeed as a business, we need to do more for agents.
Nahim and I, understand that as an emerging property portal, we need to provide a long term solution for you, the agent, and in our endeavour to strive towards this, we have always kept our fingers on the pulse.
One message that has been clear from the community and the various online focus groups we follow is that the industry does not want yet another portal that doesn't support them or have their best interests at heart.
This crisis has taught us that despite the hardships the market faces, agents cannot band together as there is an element of distrust when it comes to the partnership between the agent and the portal. Until now there has been no opportunity for agents to have a real and tangible vote over the direction of a portal…. This changes today. We present an opportunity for agents to take genuine control and ownership. This will give agents a voice and a vote on what a property portal should focus on to help agents get the most value.
We’re tired of seeing agents being taken advantage of and having their data exploited, having run a successful estate agency in the past we know how this feels, this is why we believe that now is the time for change.
For this reason, we have decided to give agents the opportunity to own Class A voting rights shares for the first 7,000 agents that register their interest, effectively owning Residential People. With this, there will be a sitting member on the board that is chosen by the agents.
A board member of an agents own choosing, will be voted in and serve a minimum of two years. This board member will be responsible for voicing the agents concerns and views on the industry as well as collectively agreeing on business direction.
As part of having a say, we will be implementing an electronic voting system whereby you can vote on different business initiatives. We will also be sharing business direction reports providing you visibility on where we are heading, effectively giving you the opportunity to own the roadmap.
We are offering Class A voting shares to 7,000 agency members who join us on a first come first served basis, which means that not only do you have an equity stake in the business, you also get say in the direction that we take. These shares can never be altered or revoked.
Being an agent-backed portal, we as a collective will be able to access exclusive products and rates from lenders as there is strength in numbers. The benefits of this will be passed directly onto our members and not for the benefit of Residential People.
As part of this scheme, everybody has a voice and is treated equal, this means that there is no ‘Gold’, ‘Silver’ or ‘Bronze’-tired membership, and it doesn’t matter whether you are a large corporate or a single independent office.
Our promise to you is that we will NEVER share your data for the gain of Residential People. The data is yours and ONLY yours, any benefit that can be gained from the data will only be done where we can see it helping you as the agent.
