A North East property technology group has acquired part of a Midlands firm to continue its growth in the online property market.
Newcastle-headquartered iamproperty has acquired SDL Auctions’ portfolio of estate agency partners that use the Modern Method of Auction (MMoA) service in an undisclosed transaction. The deal for the Nottinghamshire firm is part of iamproperty’s strategy to grow its online auction service.
The deal means that more than 1,000 estate agency branches will join iamproperty, giving it a partner network of more than 4,500 branches across the UK. The company is best known for its iamsold online property auction site, which recently achieved annual sales of more than £1bn worth of property.
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Ben Ridgway, managing director at iamproperty, said: “This is another very exciting acquisition and is part of our continued mission to modernise the UK property market, creating solutions which save agents time and support them to drive efficiencies and revenues in their business.
“The SDL Auctions business aligns not only in our mission and proposition portfolio but in our commitment to service excellence and experience for our partner agents. We’re really looking forward to welcoming some new teammates to iamproperty too.”
Jamie Cooke, managing director at iamsold, added: “This acquisition will help us to further accelerate the growth of the Modern Method of Auction as leaders in the space. We’re pleased to welcome our new agents onboard to the iamsold network. We are excited to build lasting relationships with the agent businesses joining us and to help them further develop their auction offering.”
The iamproperty proup was founded in 2009 by Mr Cooke and Mr Ridgway to fill a gap in the market for an online property auction service. It now employs close to 400 people and most recent accounts for iamsold showed a 42% rise in revenues to £34.3m.
The acquisition of SDL is iamproperty’s second major deal of the year, following a move in March to take over Oxfordshire-based property software business VTUK. SDL Property Auctions have a number of estate agency partners, including Knight Frank, which use its live-streamed national auctions. In 2021, the company’s auction sales topped £250m.
SDL managing director Andrew Parker said: “We see our area of growth within the market to be through our corporate partnerships, which have already proved to be a success over the last few years.
“Our deal with iamproperty allows our other estate agency partners to continue to be well serviced whilst we continue to grow our business. Our focus is making our customers’ sales journeys as swift and as stress-free as possible.
“It will be sad to say farewell to our friends and colleagues, but we’re confident that iamproperty will be a great home for them.”
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