It is a familiar situation for Yorkshire agents. A company has an instruction in Sheffield, Halifax, York or Huddersfield. Does it appoint a local agent? No, it appoints a Leeds agent.
Major clients are drawn to Yorkshire’s premier city by the big national names, such as GVA Grimley and Jones Lang LaSalle, among its 78 surveying firms.
They believe the bigger the agent, the more it will know about every town and city.
National agents in Leeds say this perception is fair. They are, after all, the big fish in the large pond that is Leeds. One even considers a local agent’s job as “mopping up the smaller deals”.
“As a larger firm, we do take instructions from national and multinational clients, and they come to us because we are the one-stop shop,” says Andrew Gent of DTZ in Leeds.
Gent adds that only three of the national agencies have representation in Sheffield. He questions whether these offices can provide similar access to resources to that offered by the numerous big firms in Leeds: “Are they going to have access to the sort of resources, in terms of research or technical expertise, which the larger firms can call on?”
Andrew Rodger of GVA Grimley, Leeds, which does a lot of work in Sheffield, refers to the “Sheffield Mafia” of local agents. But the closeness of local agents does not put his company off doing work in the city. He says his company goes where its skills are needed, regardless of local conditions.
“If you are a specialist in a certain area and you get a project from another place, be it Sheffield or York or anywhere that’s suited to your type of service, then you will get called in. You can’t look to a three-man band to do that,” says Rodger.
The “X is better than Y” debate aside, almost all the agents in Leeds are happy to consider joint partnerships on deals, and many local agents are happy to work with their big city counterparts.
And in their defence, national agents in Leeds are quick to point out that it is clients themselves that often ask them to be involved in local deals.
Alistair Russell, head of Jones Lang LaSalle in Leeds, says it is not a case of stealing work from local agents, but that they are acting on instructions from their clients.
“We are not here to rob anybody else. We are here to get the best result.”
But not all major firms believe they have to be in Leeds. Fuller Peisner has an office in Sheffield, and FPDSavills has a base in York.
Andrew Halstead, head of Fuller Peisner, says his company can serve its clients just as well from Sheffield as it could from Leeds.
There is, however, a lot of pride among local agents who believe wholeheartedly that national agents could not do their jobs properly if it was not for them.
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Sheffield office lettings |
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|
Position |
Agent |
Total space let (sq ft) |
% of total space let |
No of transactions |
Average space let per agency (sq ft) |
|
1 |
Knight Frank |
315,907 |
59 |
25 |
12,637 |
|
2 |
Lambert Smith Hampton |
146,701 |
28 |
20 |
7,330 |
|
3 |
Campbell & Co |
104,171 |
20 |
8 |
12,105 |
|
4 |
GVA Grimley |
72,064 |
14 |
4 |
18,019 |
|
5 |
Lane Walker |
68,803 |
13 |
10 |
6,878 |
|
6 |
Chesterton |
21,140 |
4 |
1 |
21,141 |
|
7 |
Chappell & Co (formerly Peter Nunweek) |
3,100 |
1 |
3 |
1,033 |
|
8 |
Gerald Eve |
2,325 |
1 |
1 |
2,325 |
|
Source: EGi |
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Two national firms, Knight Frank and Lambert Smith Hampton, dominate the top of EGi’s 2002 Sheffield agents’ league table. Between them the two companies let almost 426,608 sq ft of space out of a total of 735,000 sq ft. Significantly, both are based in the city. Knight Frank’s Tim Bottrill says his company reached the top because the Sheffield office’s main speciality is office development. Even so, local agents are still holding their own against the big boys. Campbell & Co, known for being a office specialist, Lane Walker and Chappell & Company all made it to the top eight, although the size of units let does decrease dramatically, showing that only the top three companies are the main players in the market. Around 500,000 sq ft of office deals, including speculative and prelet, is due to come on to the Sheffield market this year. · EGi’s league table is compiled from 2002 disposals only. For deals where two or more agents were involved, the floor space has counted for all parties concerned. All information is based on information submitted by the agents themselves. |
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Halifax
“Leeds has moved on and become the dominant commercial location in Yorkshire, to the disadvantage of places like Bradford, Wakefield and Huddersfield.
“We are a regional firm that historically happens to be in Halifax. We don’t pretend to be experts on the North, but we know Yorkshire. And while we do compete with Leeds firms, we also work with the likes of Donaldsons, Lambert Smith Hampton and Weatheralls, because they respect the fact that we know our market.
“If national firms want our help, and we feel our client is better served, we will work with them. We are definitely not seething and bitter, because joint ventures work well for us and the nationals.
“We certainly don’t feel that we have to have a presence in Leeds. In fact, we do a lot of business through our website, and the more business we do online, the less it matters where our office is.”
Huddersfield
“There is a certain inevitability about the larger named Leeds firms being retained by the larger companies to do their work, and it wouldn’t matter what the local agents think.
“The local agents either work with the Leeds agents or they don’t. For my part, I accept it. But what I have found is that very large firms initially secure an instruction then end up losing it to the likes of myself.
“This is because the local firms have the genuine expertise and can do a better job, giving the correct advice.
“Leeds agents are operating with one hand tied behind their backs because they are not active in the local market. They just dip their toes in and then leave again.
“Major companies pay me because they know the type of advice they are going to get is not just the corporate norm. What is important is not the size of the firm but the person giving the advice.”
Hull
“You can understand occupiers maintaining their relations with national names in Leeds. And I believe also that we need the involvement of national agents in the local market for such things as valuation, because local agents can be biased.
“For instance, on occasion, all the local agents might have an involvement in a certain property, and the bank lending against that property might be reluctant to employ local agents as a result.
“But nobody knows the local market like a local agent. In the same way as us using a local agent on an instruction out of our region, we would expect that a national agent would see the benefits of using a local agent also.
“We work with many Leeds agents and hopefully they appreciate the work we do. We have national work in the investment market and on the agency front. If a client wanted us to be involved in selling a property in Leeds then we would seek an agency to work with.”
Bradford
“Leeds agents coming into Bradford are a fact of life. We just have to accept that’s going to happen. It’s not that the Leeds agents see us as being part of their city because we are so close to them. It’s just that they think they are big enough, with lots of contacts, to do work here. But it is clients who also go for the big boys. I am acting for Yorkshire Building Society on some central Bradford deals, and the client has asked us to bring in a Leeds agent. We have brought in Jones Lang LaSalle, and they are good lads.
“At the end of the day, nobody falls out about it because we expect that somebody down in London will look at Yorkshire and they will just see Leeds.”
Sheffield
“We came to Sheffield in 1980 because there was no-one in Sheffield specialising in retail. Sheffield’s central position was also an ideal location for us to cover the Midlands and Yorkshire area.
“I think it’s oversimplified to say that Leeds dominates. Yes, the companies will pick up the international enquiries, but we are not in that market. We are selling specialist knowledge of the Sheffield market. Big companies now prefer to have specialist knowledge rather than go for the global view.”
“Historically, we have a very strong base in south Yorkshire and we find we can serve our clients from here. We haven’t found it necessary to be in Leeds, and we have no plans to open an office there.
“We have several instructions in Leeds at the moment and our work in the city is quite consistent both with agency work and professional, but we don’t have many joint ventures with the Leeds agencies.
“There is no rivalry with Leeds, and there’s a lot of development going on in Sheffield at the moment to give us all work.”
“A client’s decision to appoint a national agent from Leeds is not a logical one, because the individual in the national agency is not necessarily better qualified than the local agent.
“I have local knowledge, and I am a qualified surveyor, so what does the national agency have that we don’t have? Appointing a Leeds agent to work in Sheffield happens all the time. But it’s all friendly competition.
“If there is anyone to point the finger at, it’s the occupier. The agents are just chasing their business. It is the occupier who is deriving no additional benefit in going for a national agent who doesn’t necessarily know the market.”
York
“We do find ourselves working with Leeds agents. There’s a preconception that you need a big Leeds name if you are going to cover all bases.
“We don’t do a lot of offices work, but when we do, if it’s something very regional, we do it ourselves, but if it’s something that’s going to be bigger, clients can insist on a Leeds agent.
“Sometimes it’s not good to work jointly because you have to take a lower fee, but sometimes it is what the client wants. But you really need to be gaining something from the Leeds connection, and if it fits in with your work, then that’s great.”
“We are happy with our base in York, from which we can build our regional business. There are plans to expand further in the North East and these are being actively pursued.
“I recognise that Leeds firms will have clients that are involved in work in York and I have no issues with this because York is a booming city and there is enough work to go around.
“We see ourselves as being an authority on the York market, but the principle of other companies coming in to York to do business doesn’t bother us.
“I don’t think Leeds companies can handle the York market as well as us, simply because we are on the ground and a lot of the work carried out in the city centre is from York agents.”
