Education: Bexhill College
Home Sweet Home’s New Offices
staff members; Senior Negotiator, Sophie Archer who has been with them for many years now; Emma-Louise Brown who joined in February last year in order to specifically manage the growing lettings side of the business; and also Lydia Yap, their extremely efficient Saturday Assistant. Since their relocation, Home Sweet Home have also welcomed Paul Healy from Cavendish Financial to their team who, with a stream of experience in finance and mortgages, has interlinked with the Home Sweet Home team and is on hand to offer his expertise in the form of financial advice and mortgages – something the team were unable to offer before. Matt and Steve are now completely content with the way their business is being run, with help from their efficient, friendly and professional team of staff: “We all get on well and work together as a team!” But what was it that sparked the partnership between them? Steve continued to explain: “Matt and I have always got on well, to be fair. Three is most certainly a crowd and I think it’s much easier with two people than being a sole trader, as you will always have a second opinion on literally everything, which helps with the occasional indecisiveness. There’s comfort in that. We are good friends; we were before we started Home Sweet Home and we still are!” The Estate Agent market is a crowded
Eastbourne
one, especially in highly residential areas with a large volume of elderly people, such as Eastbourne and Brighton, which would usually, make the process of starting up your own particularly difficult, but Matt and Steve claim that one of the main elements that kept them going and their most unique selling point was – and still is – their company’s name. There were plenty of options when it came to the name of their business, Davies & Thompson being the obvious choice and following in the footsteps of the many other Estate Agents. However, Home Sweet Home was definitely the more unique, personal and warm title, giving off
certain positive vibes that haven’t quite been established by many other agents. Steve elaborates: “You can find all sorts of ‘Home Sweet Home’ goodies in shops such as Next. Most people just do seem to like it and properties look good on our headed paper and with a Home Sweet Home board outside.” For the initial few years, Home Sweet Home comprised purely of Matt and Steve themselves, with a focus on just residential sales and working hard for six days out of the week, when in 2006, Matt came up with the suggestion of taking on lettings also, which lead to the build up of Home Sweet Home’s small team of staff. Steve’s sister, Sarah decided
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