Ten Questions with Allan Wood and Lewis Buckley, Co-Founders at Hiizzy

"In the UK, a £500,000 sale at 1% is a commission of £5,000. With Hiizzy, you will not pay more than £485."

What does an agentless transaction look like? Or more interestingly, is it an inevitability?

For Allan Wood and Lewis Buckley (pictured below), an agentless transaction isn't a want, it's a need. And according to them, it's also the next logical step for a seller who wants to reduce bottlenecks and take care of a deal in their own time.

Hiizzy is an early-stage British startup that offers a modest subscription fee to list properties, connects buyers with sellers, and also offers partnerships for sellers who want help from conveyancing to sourcing For Sale boards.

The company already has paying subscribers, a handy number of sales under its belt—and it's currently mid-fundraise.

I caught up with cofounders Wood and Buckley to ask them about taking on one of the most tried-and-tested parts of the transaction ever known—the agent—and what they intend to do about it.

From pain points to pricing strategies, here is what Hiizzy has to say.

What is the biggest pain point for British buyers and sellers using an agent today?

There are several pain points against a backdrop of general mistrust of estate agents, particularly for sellers who have an issue with poor customer service and communication. Also, over-valuation to secure a sole agency instruction results in few viewings and frustration and disappointment with resultant price reductions.

For a buyer, the story is very different, but without doubt, buyers experience difficulties with “their” estate agent, who is the seller’s agent and has no contractual relationship with the buyer at all. This is rarely made clear to the buyer. Again, poor communication is high on the complaint list.

What problem does Hiizzy solve?

Hiizzy removes the agent entirely from the process and connects the seller with the buyer with a circa 95% saving on estate agency fees.

Hiizzy provides a first-class technology platform with deep data and Generative AI to give sellers all the tools they need to list their property for sale with 24-hour control over any changes they wish to make to their listing.

We also provide a full network of professional services to support the seller every step of the way, from market valuation advice from a RICS qualified surveyor to ‘for sale’ boards and conveyancing services.

Hiizzy empowers people and gives them all the tools they need to be confident in selling their home themselves.

What does your product look like, and what is its unique value proposition?

Our product looks and feels like any property listing that sellers and buyers are used to seeing. It is familiar, intuitive, and easy to use. There are no hidden fees or costs in using Hiizzy and it is a matter of choice which additional services a seller might wish to use through our third-party professional support network.

Our unique value proposition is choice of self-determination, control, professional support, a huge sense of achievement—and a very significant saving.

How is Hiizzy funded? Will you raise money soon?

Hiizzy has been bootstrapped by its founders and is presently in the middle of its first capital raise.

We are not a cut-price estate agency; we're a technology company within the property sector—unlike, for example, Purplebricks, which employs 100s of people. Hiizzy has no such need for such overheads, providing everything a user needs through technology and its professional partner network.

Was your hand forced to have a subscription model to ensure you don’t charge like an agent (e.g. Purplebricks)?

No hands were forced in our subscription charging model. We did consider a simple up-front fixed fee model, but research proved that this was less attractive, resulting in our adopting a subscription model.

Our charging model is a completely flexible, cancel anytime arrangement because we believe people should have complete control. We want to disrupt this market, and we want people to be empowered and, to be true to this belief, that empowerment flows through to the flexibility people should have in the payment model.

How much can a seller save by using Hiizzy instead of an agent?

Even with a modest 1% fee in the UK, our model remains attractive. A £500,000 sale at 1% is £5,000. With Hiizzy, you will not pay more than £485, which is a 90% saving, and if you sell within 3 months, you will only pay £194. This is a lot of extra cash for squeezed sellers.

Hiizzy is about providing choice. If you don’t want to sell your home yourself, use an estate agent. I have heard too many stories of stressed sellers using an agent so we already know that agency is far from the perfect solution. Hiizzy is for motivated, digitally-enabled people, and that's why we're the future of house selling and buying!

How reliant will you be on growing adjacent revenue streams on top of the core business to make your margins?

We are not reliant on adjacent revenue streams. Any adjacent revenue streams are purposely low to ensure maximum user value for money and transparency in this process. Some services through our network are entirely free to our customers.

Integrating an agentless transaction into the UK market will be tough. How have you measured demand for the business, and how do you plan on scaling?

Much is made of the number of hits Rightmove and Zoopla attract each month as if this is the panacea of estate agency. Estate agents have allowed themselves to become disempowered by the portals, handing seller lead responsibility to them rather than taking responsibility for seller leads themselves. The Hiizzy marketplace will build a community of sellers and buyers within the communities where they live—most people move within a 15-mile radius.

Our market research results showed that up to 70% of people said they would use a product like Hiizzy.

The Purplebricks model partly proves that people are looking for a more self-help digital alternative to the traditional estate agent service and experience, although Purplebricks ultimately does not provide that.

Our model may seem like a long shot when viewed through an “it’s always been done that way” lens, where people have not had the choice and have been disempowered from selling their homes. The reality is that thousands of people want to sell their homes without an estate agent—there are many Facebook groups that prove this point. Before Hiizzy, they had nowhere to go, no marketplace to advertise their homes. Hiizzy now provides that solution.

Hiizzy is building a marketplace from a cold start. It will take time, so patience and tenacity are required. It is all about digital marketing and providing a fantastic service to establish a trustworthy and recognisable brand.

How does Hiizzy see the role of the agent evolving, especially given the acceleration of AI-enabled technology?

We think that the present model for estate agents is out of date and out of touch.

Commission fees are high (1%-3%), but based on the existing model, agents need to sell a large number of properties to support agency office space, staff, advertising, Rightmove fees, tax, etc.

Technology, data, and AI will revolutionise everything. Agents are slow to evolve and adopt new technologies. Just like high street travel agents, they are mostly a thing of the past. I believe the same will apply to estate agencies, and it will exist only for high-value and important residences.

What should the industry spend more time talking about that it isn’t talking about?

The industry should start being honest with itself.

For some reason, they describe themselves as a profession which (excluding the esteemed RICS) it is not. Estate agency is an unqualified and unregulated (save AML obligations) industry. Anyone can set up an estate agency and suddenly call themselves a professional and be skilled to value homes and negotiate for people. I don’t know of any other industry that gets away with this. The industry requires a root-and-branch shake-up.

If this is to be a Profession (with a capital P), then people need to qualify and become professionally accredited.