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This is the Business Village People Podcast.

Hello, I'm David Markwell. Welcome to the Business Village People Podcast.

This is episode six of series two.

In this podcast, we showcase stories from the companies, service providers and staff at the Business Village in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

Well, if you're ready, let's go!

In this episode of Business Village People

Two people who started working for themselves totally by accident.

We meet a young chap who was set up as an estate agent, but not any old agent.

Barnsley's first.

Disclaimer.

We think, but we could be wrong, there may be others.

Your house is at risk if you keep the back door open.

Disclaimer.

Barnsley's first, possibly, personal estate agent.

He reckons it's the future. I'll be asking him why.

Also, we meet the motivational educationalist, teacher, author and humourist, who at times looks and sounds like a cross between Gary Barlow and

and Jason Manford. His business, Create, Learn and Inspire, is based here at the Business Village.

Time to meet our first guest.

Owen Beasley has recently begun working for himself as a personal estate agent.

Here's his story.

You've got a lot of people out there, a lot of estate agents out there, that are more corporate and work on volume if I'm honest.

And I think it's time now when the market is changing for estate agents, where there is that personal touch, that personal branding,

where they're not working on volume and the work on your property and get it sold, because each property is different.

Some will sell quickly, just because of what everything is and the price tag.

Some will sell slowly if they're more expensive.

And he needs a personal touch to make sure it all gets sold, because nearly 50% of properties that go on the market don't sell.

And I want to put the time in to each property and get them all sold, rather than it being a flipper coin kind of thing.

And that's what I bring to suppose the Barnes and Mac is.

So what do you mean by personal estate agent, say how are you different?

I'll take them from A to Z, so value the house, get it sold, go for all the legal process.

Anyone rings me up, they've got my mobile number from 9am, 8pm, up until 9pm at night, they don't have to ring an office and be passed around the office as such,

which you get a lot in the corporate side.

And that's the personal touch I'll do with everything, basically, and that's that.

So how did you get into estate agents, you can say?

By accident, to be fair, I wanted to get into property and I was more interested in building a portfolio for the back of it for retirement.

And I joined B-craft estates in One Will, and it's spelled from there, I covered the media side of it, enjoyed it.

I always knew I wanted to score myself.

So what you said you wanted to get into property, did you mean owning the property rather than just getting into estate agents, say, straight away?

Yeah, I wanted to get into flipping properties and...

What's that mean?

So buy one, renovate it and sell it on for a profit, essentially.

I just loved it, I saw the people doing it, I wanted to get into it, and I started off getting into estate agents, getting into an estate agent role, and I enjoyed it.

And I felt, you know, there's potential for me to do this as well.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's how I kind of go into it, I kind of fell into it accidentally, I suppose.

So what's the market like at the moment in Barnsley and South Yorkshire?

There's a lot on the market, a lot more than other years, to be fair, there's a lot of choice, and I think that's two things.

Buyers have too much choice, so sometimes property can sell slowly, but also on the other end, you've got interest rates that are not the lowest.

I mean, theoretically, historically, it's not actually the eye.

But at the same time, it stops people buying, but that's why a lot of people are selling, so you've got a lot of sellers, not as many buyers, but stuff is still moving, and, you know, the base rates dropped.

That's brought more buyers to the market, and it'll continue to drop up by the end of this year.

It's at roughly 4%.

But it is moving, and there's a lot on the market, to be fair.

And although, if you look at the property prices and you look at statistics and whatnot, across barns, stuff is still rising.

People say, you know, prices aren't at the 2022 eye, but actually, it's not the prices, it's the timing.

In 2022, you could sell an house in a day, in an hour, whereas it takes a little bit longer now, but you'll still get more than you would in 2022, because it's jumped about 4.5 cents instead.

So it's still growing, and barns is actually one of the strongest markets across the country.

Some people, some areas have dropped 8%, some have gone up 8%, in oil, and in the last 12 months, it's gone up 8%.

It's crazy.

I think that is.

I think there's a lot going on in barns, so it's had a £200m investment into the town centre.

In Hoiland, they've got the every, that's opened up, that's had a lot of jobs, I think that's supported the property market there as well.

It's normally the east side of barns, and the south side of barns, that's been the strongest so far.

When you look at it over the last 12 months, it's the more stronger market.

That's probably gone up 5%, 8%, roughly in the area in the north of barns.

You're looking at 3%, 4%, but I think the every, especially for Hoiland, has brought a lot of jobs to it, and it's bang on the motorway,

and it's actually affordable in Ireland.

Parts of S75, Tankers, Gorb and that side of town are quite expensive, so pushing the ceiling prices there is the hitting them.

Whereas Hoiland is the next place I think it's going to kind of blow up.

Okay, so how do you value a house?

There's a number of things, so you look at comparable evidence, depending on the property, there can be a lot of comparable, so if next saw is the exact same size, the exact same amount of bedrooms, and it sold last week, then you know exactly what that property is going to be worth.

Sometimes it's different, and you've got to dive into it and see what sold, even within half a mile, if it's a beautiful 5-bed detached, what a 5-bed detached going for in the market.

And also, that street might have gone up a couple of percents since that last property sold.

If it sold two years ago, it's comparable.

You've got to factor in, well, properties have gone up 5%, 6%.

You've also got to factor in how much is the renovation cost going to be if you are to, if it needs the renovation.

Cost chances are, you're even going to get people who want to do the work, and there's not many of them, or you're going to get someone who's wanting to buy the house and do the renovation, so you've got to price it right, that there's actually money in it for them sometimes.

But also, builders are going to be cheaper, so you always try to price it right, so everyone wins, but also you've got to bear in mind, you're going to price it as much as possible for the vendor, so they walk away with the money.

Don't you ever really? So, yeah, that's the idea to value an house really in the short term, I suppose.

So, what about you? Where are you from? How are you at Barnsley? Bread and butted?

Yeah, at Barnsley, born and bread.

From Adsley, actually.

Obviously, I've only been doing personal estate agency for a couple of months now, and Adsley and, I suppose, S71, you know, Montbroughton, etc.

That is my key area, I know it like the back of my hand, so I'm wanting to build a really good reputation up, because I feel like I can add a lot to the market there.

There's no personal estate agent in Barnsley. There is some here and there, but not in that area, if I'm honest, and, you know, when someone's selling an house in that area, especially in Adsley, if someo