Global estate agency opens in the UK after completing acquisition

iad has today announced it is now open for business in England and Wales.

The company, which offers agents to a self-employed model that it claims has ‘a number of differences’, has formally launched in this country after announcing the acquisition of David Lee estate agents, the self-employed estate agency platform founded by Lee O’Brien and David Kirby in 2004.

With annual revenues of over £500m and 20,000 partner agents, iad is already established in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Mexico.

The UK is said to be an important part of iad’s expansion plans with other major territories to be announced soon.

David Lee will now re-brand to iad with Lee O’Brien taking the position of managing director of the UK business whilst David Kirby will operate as head of constellation, leading a team currently made up of 21 agents. The new proposition covers sales, lettings and property management.

Jason Bull, formerly of easyProperty, has joined iad as head of coaching and training, and will head the online university programme, to support agents to grow.

The iad model offers partner agents a commission split of up to 87.8%. Additionally, agents can earn additional income from encouraging other agents to join iad by way of ‘revenue share’.

Clement Delpirou, president of iad globally, said: “The United Kingdom is a key country for our expansion as the world’s fourth largest market in value terms and one that we recognise as one of Europe’s most valuable.

“Our brand of estate agency provides the ultimate support and financial opportunity to our partner agents backed by one of the fastest growing companies in the property sector. Our ambitions are fuelled with annual revenues of over half a billion pounds which will provide substantive reassurance to potential agents thinking of making a move to being self-employed or that wish to move from their current self-employed platform.

“Our goal is to become the dominant estate agency across Britain. We’ll do this simply by being the most attractive business to work with for good agents, not just on commission split and revenue share but on genuine support and with our unique revenue share approach also.”

Lee O’Brien added: “There is a significant opportunity for a well-funded and credible player to lead the expansion of the self-employed model in this country and as we’ve seen in the US, Europe and Australia – but not here yet.

“David Kirby and I have laid decent foundations with our personal, culture rich approach to agent recruitment and support over the past few years and we were looking for the ‘rocket fuel’ to take this to the highest level. Our decision to do a deal with iad was a no-brainer in that respect and we are incredibly excited to be leading the iad expansion in the UK now”.

iad UK will operate from David Lee’s offices at Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire.

 

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12 Comments

  1. Gonzo38

    Congratulations David and Lee, what an achievement.

    looking forward to watching you write the IAD story in the U.K. With two of the most visionary, and nicest gents in Estate Agency at the helm, it’s going to be an exciting time.

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  2. Gangsta Agent

    lets go round again

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  3. jan-byers

    Same old bo====ks

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  4. Chris Watkin

    Lee O’Brien is a decent operator – let’s see what he can do with some decent investment behind him.

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  5. Taliesin84

    Sorry but when you end up playing with titles such as “ head of constellation” then frankly your doomed. 

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  6. jeremy1960

    Isn’t this the same story that gets churned out every few months just a different agent name?

    The long and short of it is that the fee structure in the UK is so different to the rest of the countries that these type of agents operate in that it can never work on a scale. if the public were prepared to pay 5% to sell their property then it may have some traction but, they are not, many, it seems value their properties so little that they are prepared to give the job to an online outfit that does the job for free!

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    1. John Murray

      Not sure about that one – eXp UK has over 400 agents and growing substantially – the self-employed model is gaining traction and I think iad have entered the UK market on the back of observing eXp’s success. Big differences between both models so will be interesting moving forward – I wish anyone doing it for themselves the very best of luck, whatever model they feel is most appropriate for their personal circumstances.

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      1. jan-byers

        You are having a giraffe   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

        My local exp agents is a guy I worked with for 2 years.

        He spent his life looking at football websites in the office.

        He currently has TWO properties on the market

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        1. John Murray

          …and the other 399 of us? Maybe you inspired him so much he took to other things – now he is doing it for himself, probably got more motivation – you are Mrs Negativity after all – depressing really

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          1. jan-byers

            Not really

            When I ran the office it turned over 800k

            I left for another office and he turned in less than 350 k the next year

            He has since been with 4 other agents and been sacked for every one

            I do not need to be inspired by others I Work with I get in with it

            So the other 399 of you are all the market leader>

            Funny as I travel all over the south east midlands and London and have yet to see one single ExP board anywhere

            Looking at the web site very few agents have more than a handful of properties on the market

            As for negative I run my own very profitable development company which is far more difficult than being an agent which is a low skilled admin job

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        2. jan-byers

          Looking at your website you have 2 properties listed for sale

          Yup you are really smashing the opposition

          You just be rushed off your feet and must be making a fortune

          What a joke

          LOL

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          1. John Murray

            …check the completed sales Jan – I really don’t think you understand our model. The vast majority of us work on two to three listings at a time, then get them sold, then list the next ones in line. Capped last year Jan, almost there again this year, so doing well.

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