BUYING a house is said to be one of the most stressful events in a person’s life, but the daughter of a Somerset businessman went out to buy a house - and came back having offered to buy an estate agency.

Charlotte Roberts was looking to buy a property in Somerset and viewed various possible homes, and the experience left her underwhelmed.

“My family has various business interests and has always stressed that customer service is always key to a good business and my aunt runs a very successful estate agency," said Charlotte.

"I’ve been involved in handling the letting and management of some holiday units. Viewing a house in East Brent, I discovered the agency was being run part time.

“My business and some of the family interests were effected by Covid and we had all agreed that widening our footprint was a good idea.

"Bolting estate agency onto our current interest made more sense the more we thought about it, and I talked it through with my family and we met up with the shareholders and agreed a deal where I would take over and they would provide me with support during the transition period.

"I also enrolled on the Propertymark Training Course and have registered with all the appropriate bodies.

"Because it will be my business, I wanted to rebrand it and Charlotte's Town and Country was the name I chose, as we will be selling and letting both town and country properties."

In the internet age, Charlotte believes there is no need to incur the costs of the traditional estate agency office, although she will have a number of display windows in strategic locations.

“In viewing houses, I was struck with how it was better if I was shown the property by the agent and some negotiators were far better than others," she said.

"I listed out what I wanted to experience with an estate agency and then started to talk to my friends about their experiences in buying and letting property.

“We will be offering a very personal service and vendors will be able to see the results of our efforts by potential buyers coming to their property, not on 'clicks' on the internet."

In place of the costs of a traditional office, Charlotte is investing in reliable software and systems to ensure smooth communication with clients.

“In this day and age and especially post-Covid, many things will be changing," she said.

"Things had started before with internet-based agencies, hybrids, and interrupters such as Purple Brick.

"One issue I had was in trying to view properties at a time that suited me, and flexibility is one of the services we will be offering."

The estate agency will provide both marketing and management services to individuals and corporate landlords. It will also offer introductions to like-minded, property-related service companies.

“I have reached agreements with a whole of market mortgage brokers to provide both regulated and non-regulated financial services, a planning and design business and a property maintenance business so we can provide a whole range of services,” Charlotte said.

“We will initially be concentrating on the local area but already have some owners of larger rural property looking to instruct us to handle their marketing in other parts of Somerset.”

For more details on the service being offered by Charlotte’s, email charlottes-townandcountry@mail.com, or call her on 07850 867626.