Redwoods Estate Agents mark 20 years (From Romsey Advertiser)
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Redwoods Estate Agents mark 20 years
10:33am Thursday 12th April 2012 in Hampshire Business By Richard Garfield
Jeff Bevins (left) and Brian Hewitt
TOMORROW one of north Hampshire’s most successful family-run estate agents will pass a 20-year milestone.
Redwoods Estate Agents, co-owned by Jeff Bevins and Brian Hewitt started selling homes back in 1992.
“It’s been a real roller coaster journey,” said Jeff, who is full of praise for his team.
“It hasn’t always been easy – there’s been blood, sweat and tears and also a lot of fun and laughs along the way.
“When we first opened the doors to our first office at 2, Queens Parade in New Street on April 13, 1992, Brian and I didn’t really know where we were going to go with the company.
“All we knew was that we wanted to go into business for ourselves, and not work for a big national estate agent.”
The pair had about 30 years of industry experience between them, having previously worked for national agents.
“We knew we were both good estate agency managers,” said Jeff. “But what we lacked in experience was actually running a business, so it was a steep learning curve which we went through very quickly and soon got ourselves established.”
The pair did well, opening nine estate agency offices and five lettings offices within the first eight years.
Unfortunately, the property crash and recession of 2008 took a heavy toll and to survive Redwoods had to close a number of its village branches.
But now the business is in a strong position with four sales offices – in New Street and Brighton Hill in Basingstoke, at Andover and at the head office in Tadley.
Redwoods also has lettings offices, with more than 700 properties on its books, and has its own property maintenance company.
Jeff said Redwoods is experiencing strong sales at present. He said: “Our sales are up almost 60 per cent compared to this time last year, for the first quarter.
“We are still predicting a very busy spring market and at the moment the lettings market is strong as well as the demand for first-time buyer properties in the sales market.”
