With the UK looking set to leave the EU, a team of estate agents in Newcastle is embracing all things British and have set themselves the target of helping a busy student suburb settle back into a traditional family living area.
There are now almost 50,000 students in Newcastle. Many are living in a number of purpose-built student blocks which have recently been built in the city centre. The new accommodation blocks have attracted students who would have traditionally taken over Tyneside flats in places like Heaton or even larger properties in Jesmond. This has left many empty properties which are suitable for families and estate agents HomeXperts Newcastle are determined to redress the balance and turn Jesmond and other parts of the city back into family oriented areas.
The HomeXperts Newcastle franchise was set up by three members of the Toth family who came to the UK from their native Hungary a decade ago.
The move from Debrecen, the second largest city in Hungary after Budapest came when brothers Laszlo and Krisztian and sister in law Vera Papp moved to Newcastle to work. Starting in various hotel and handyman roles, the trio who couldn’t speak English at the time, worked their way through a number of jobs and careers learning the language fluently as well as engrossing themselves in British culture. Their jobs helped them to gain an insider understanding of property, customer service skills and management techniques.
The family have now invested in an online estate agency and have used all of their experience and self-taught skills to establish themselves very firmly in a highly competitive environment.
“HomeXperts Newcastle is a distinctively different way to buy or rent a home. We work with property investors to source suitable investment properties and we also find tenants and manage the property on behalf of the owners too,” said Verra. “We tend to get a lot of personal referrals so we always work hard to impress our clients.”
Each of the family members brings a different skill to the business, Krisztian was a soldier in the Hungarian army before moving to the UK where he has specialised in property maintainace. Laszlo started his UK career as a food delivery driver before becoming an area manager for a major food group while Vera took the hospitality route working in hotels throughout the city. She has now undertaken a host of training to bring her up to speed with the latest qualifications in the estate agency world.
With their expert knowledge of Newcastle and the surrounding areas, the team are seeing the gradual return of families to the Jesmond area as more and more students move into the city centre.
“This is a great thing for Jesmond as the suburb is coming back to its roots and hosting the people the houses were originally designed for. We can see Jesmond becoming more popular than ever with house prices reflecting this,” said Laszlo. “We are real examples of how anyone can truly integrate into an area and although it’s been hard work, we feel very much at home and have the support of our customers behind us. We want our customers to feel comfortable in their new homes too and we do this by making sure we advise them on the best possible choices for them.”