Bradley Hall Managing Director Reviews Another Successful Year For Firm

Leading North East chartered surveyors and estate agents Bradley Hall has seen another year of rapid expansion and business success. The firm's group managing director, Neil Hart, looks back on the past year and discusses the company's big milestones of 2017.

This year has been another significant period for Bradley Hall and BH Group. We’ve seen our team grow, welcomed new clients and projects as well as the opening of new offices and branch expansion across the region. We are now proud to say that we are a truly regional company, and our chosen network of experts now operate from every corner of the North East.

The year began with a new director appointed to oversee our residential operations. Matt Hoy, our Northumberland area manager, became the director of estate agency and now heads up our residential property branch. This was shortly followed by the appointment of our new operations director, Catherine Affleck, who oversees the running of all branches while heading up our property management team.

Our network of offices continued to grow, starting with the relocation of our Morpeth office to a larger and more central site within the town centre. We launched a presence in Seahouses following a demand for our services in the area, and our Sunderland office opened in September with a successful launch event, which welcomed local business communities and support from the local councils and leaders. We are now looking forward to branching out of the region and opening an office in London to meet demand for our services in the capital.

We broadened our offerings by launching a range of sister companies and new services, including our new building surveying department and the BH Planning and Design branch, both of which have gone from strength to strength alongside other BH Group companies; BH Mortgages and BH Financial.

Milestones are not something we have been short of this year, with our property management services at Bradley Hall reaching an impressive annual rent roll of over £6m. The team and its impressive client list continues to grow, with several ongoing projects with some of the region’s leading businesses, investors and property owners.

2017 was the year that our glossy lifestyle magazine, Portfolio, was born. It began as a 60 page magazine and the first summer edition was distributed in June. We attracted some of the region’s leading business as advertisers, and created some engaging features about what is great about the North East. Our second edition followed in September, growing to 86 pages and our third edition is underway to be launched early 2018.

We were appointed to the prestigious Lloyds Bank Valuation Panel for Secured Lending in January, and in June we were the top performing agency beating almost 100 others. We’re undertook over 100 instructions from the world’s leading banks including Lloyds, Barclays, Aldemore and Handelsbanken.

In the third quarter of the year we became a leading agent in the office market sector. The North East Office Agents Forum (NEOAF), the leading source of regional statistical information on the office sector, revealed that the regional office take up for Q3 is the best in three years. We were responsible for almost 40% of office lettings in Newcastle city centre, totalling almost 25,000sq ft, during the third quarter of 2017.

Our client list is continuing to grow, and as well as providing a high quality service to the regions home buyers and business operators, we are also building strong relationships with regional and national leading businesses, including Robertson Homes, Pulman VW, Home Group, Co-op, Arena Racing, Intu, Hanro Group, Cairn Group and Avant Homes.

This year has been another one to remember for our growing agency, and we can’t wait to see what 2018 brings as we move forward with our business and growth strategy.