BUILD Real Estate & Property Awards 2022 12 Jun22558 etti Simpson, Director of Big Skies Estates previously founded and managed award-winning local holiday letting agency, Norfolk Hideaways, which she sold in 2016 with a portfolio of 300 cottages. A qualified estate agent, she launched Big Skies Estates into the world in 2019, a property sales agency that has gone from strength to strength. The overall mission for Big Skies Estates is to offer an end-toend service to holiday cottage owners. From the initial choice of cottage to purchase through to the sale journey, onwards through marketing and management of holiday guests, and finally when it is time to move on, to sell the property for them. In general, Big Skies’ whole approach is different to most of its competitors. As a small independent, is not so driven and measured by sales performance; it can focus on delivering a professional service to both its sellers and buyers, which it is extremely proud of. It is an incredibly competitive industry and as a young agency, Big Skies has found it very challenging to carve out a niche within the market. It has an excellent reputation in the local market and the focus is building on this to increase its overall market share. Hetti’s experience and expertise in the holiday lettings sector is a big benefit to Big Skies because it is able to offer genuine and sound advice to buyers who are interested in buying a home in Norfolk for them to use as a family but also to earn income from holiday letting to supplement its costs. North Norfolk is a very popular holiday destination, and in some of the coastal villages, as many as 70% of the cottages are second homes/ holiday lets. However, there is a bit of a backlash currently against second homeowners, which has been brewing for some time, but certainly the lockdowns crystalised the issues. The councils are considering doubling council tax for second homeowners who don’t holiday let and this might lead to more properties coming to market or switching to holiday letting. As a result of the high prices for property in the coastal villages, there is an issue with affordable housing for the local communities. New affordable housing projects are being built, but in general there is a feeling that the locals can’t afford to live in the area. This isn’t strictly true, of course, there are much more affordable towns and villages slightly more inland, with Hetti feeling that some consideration should also be giving to the fact that without the tourism industry there would be limited jobs in this area, outside of traditional industries, like farming. The agency recently launched Big Skies Holiday Cottages, as a sister to Estates, to offer the end-to-end service that so many have been seeking. This means that clients can buy their cottage with Big Skies, as well as rent through them, and when the time is right, have the resale of it managed by them, too. Managing a busy sales office whilst setting up a whole new business in the background has been the agency’s biggest challenge to date. Creating the infrastructure to launch Big Skies Holiday Cottages was a huge amount of work and the danger had been that focus was lost from the core business, that of selling houses. Hetti comments, “Thankfully, I have a small but super dedicated team who have stepped up and put in extra hours and extra days where necessary to ensure that our customer service standards have not slipped.” Indeed, the team has taken it all in their stride. They are tight-knit and focus very much on working together in order to create a healthy working environment and provide the best level of service possible to clients. The company does not have individual commission structures, for example, if the business does well, everyone is rewarded equally, which creates great staff morale. Ultimately, it’s easy to see how Big Skies has come to achieve such success within the Real Estate and Property Awards 2022, between its incredible ambition and dedication to consistently high-quality customer service. There couldn’t be a better agency to deal with if you are seeking to buy, sell, or rent out a property in Norfolk. Company: Big Skies Estates Contact: Hetti Simpson Email: [email protected] Website: www.bigskiesestates.co.uk H Best Holiday Property Sales Agency - East Anglia Big Skies Estates (Big Skies) is a unique estate agency based on the stunning North Norfolk coast which specialises in the sale of second homes and holiday lets. It is the only agency in Norfolk, potentially in the UK, that offers specific advice to buyers seeking a second home, especially one that can generate a second income as a holiday let when they are not using it.
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