After a career in marketing and property development, Knaresborough couple, John and Victoria Dixon have combined the two and launched Fresh Chilli Estate Agents.
They have swapped the shop window for a complete digital sales platform with traditional service values.
Eliminating the expense of maintaining a high street office and all the associated staff costs, to offer a simple, menu-style proposition that makes selling property easy, quick and affordable.
John said:
Like a great many pre-digital business sectors, estate agents have not been challenged for decades.
We’re going to do things a lot differently: reducing fees, improving communications and speeding the whole process up significantly.
John founded and chaired Leeds-based Dixon Moutrie Silkstone, one of the north’s biggest media & advertising companies for 15 years, before emigrating to Australia for four years and running a property-related business. On his return to the UK in 2010, he started his own property development company and is now switching his attentions to the sales sector.
As principals, he and Victoria, who met at DMS, will use their marketing expertise to shape the different way Fresh Chilli works.
John said:
We will deal with every customer personally and take regular advantage of the whole range of social media available today to offer a fresh perspective to those seeking an alternative to the current options available.
Unlike mainstream agencies, who are often accused of having low service and communication values and offering poor value for money, we will update all our clients with a weekly report and at least match any like-for-like fee quotation.
From our name and logo, to our pricing structure with its stepped and fixed, inclusive fees, we aim to stand out and save customers a substantial amount of money.
John and Victoria’s strategy is also based on keeping things local.
John said:
We believe knowledge of the area and an experienced appreciation of the value of the homes within it is vital. Consequently, we will be focusing solely on properties in Harrogate, Knaresborough and Wetherby.
As well as being featured on our own website – freshchilli.co.uk – all our properties will be available on the main house-selling platforms such as Rightmove and Zoopla.
If we identify potential to expand into other localities, we will do this by means of hand-picked franchises to cover specific areas, with several enquiries already in the pipeline.
