Self-employed agency marks major expansion into rentals

Self employed agency brand Harding Green, which majors on London and prime country markets, says it’s grown significantly in the lettings sector.

Marking a series of successes in 2023, chief executive Nick Carter says his firm has grown its agent team across all sectors by 30 per cent, doubled its number of agents handling lettings as well as sales, and opened a short lets department.

Carter comments: “Over the last year, we spent considerable time reviewing our processes to remove unnecessary steps, allowing us to turn around new instructions for our agents, now typically in under 20 minutes. It's my job to ensure our broker's costs are as low as possible whilst allowing them to have 95 per cent of their working week available to do what they do best. This is a contributing factor to the extremely high retention rate of our agents and the revenues they have been able to generate.” 

In addition to the growth in the lettings space, Harding Green’s overall revenue grew by 74 per cent last year, sold £12m of homes off a website specialising in off-market properties, used external trainers to assist with marketing, and enjoyed a seven-figure revenue for the firm’s St John’s Wood team in its first operating year. 

Harding Green was set up to cover primarily the central London market back in late summer 2017. It was the brainchild of Carter, a former Chestertons agent. Its commission structures for agents working under the brand - it calls them brokers -  range from 60 or 70 per cent, and extend to 80 per cent after a consultant has transacted over £120,000 in fees. It trains all of its brokers to list lettings properties, and use PropTech to automate much of the process. 

In November it appointed a former Hamptons agent to handle short lets for clients.

Nina Wallrock is Harding Green’s first dedicated broker solely focussed on this service.

At the time Nick Carter announced: “Over the last few years, we have been asked by more and more clients if we can handle their properties for Short-Let. Our Short-Let service for our clients will primarily start in London, offering a fully insured stay and a comprehensive management and referencing service. We are also only taking bookings for one month plus, working with many large corporate companies and relocation firms.”