Q Sales & Lettings celebrate their relaunch, rebrand & relocation

Quality

Q Let’s have been around for ten years. Originally opened by father and son team Joe and Jim Quintana, they were proud to run a small but well run operation. Ten years on, they now see it as a time to expand, to rebrand and to solidify the business they are so proud of with an expansion into residential sales, a rebrand and a smart new office. Latest Homes caught up with the new team, headed up by brothers Jim and Josè Quintana and their new sales director James Beale.

Tell us about your move into residential sales…
Jim: “We had a small number of properties originally and our emphasis was on customer service, that and never growing beyond our ability to maintain that quality of service. We never managed more than 100 properties at any time believing that larger portfolios are too often poorly managed by agents. What we did we were doing well. We did not want to become victims of our own success by rapidly expanding before we were ready. That time has now come and we can see that for us the next move is into residential sales. We will be retaining our place in the lettings market which has been for so long our specialism, but launching a sales wing with our new partner James Beale is a development we are very excited about.”

How have you found the move into residential sales?
José: “We are certainly seeking new instructions and we are delighted with how things are already going. We will not be obsessed with winning instructions at any cost, just with doing things right and making sure the service we offer buyers and vendors is as good as it can possibly be.

“It’s very important to us as a team that people are aware that we all live in the city and that we have confidence in the market. We would like people to see that we are a stable company, and when people recognise that they will want to come to us and use our services.”

You have always operated from Lewes Road and your newly refurbished office is next door to your old one. Will your focus be in the Hanover, Lewes Road and Hartington Road area?
Jim: “We will have a strong footing in those areas but we are also dealing with properties across the city. We will obviously start on our own doorstep.”

Are you very hands-on?
Jim: “Absolutely, we intend to make this an approachable company, one where you will be dealing face to face with the directors on a day to day basis. All three of us will be working from the new office every day.”

The people of Brighton and Hove are very keen on supporting local businesses. Does that suit your plan?
James: “It certainly does, we see ourselves as exactly that: a strong local and independent business and a real part of the local community. Our plan is to be at the very heart of the community and to work alongside other local independent businesses and organisations. We have already formed lots of local bonds and we hope to make many more as we grow.”

The business of estate agency has changed massively over the last ten years. How have you embraced that change?
Jim: “We like to be smart and creative in the way we work. We are always seeking exciting new ways to approach potential clients and we love coming up with new marketing ideas. Working with local wine merchant Henry Butler, we have produced material that as well as promoting the services that we can offer also has a recipe and a wine suggestion from Henry on the back. Henry will be supplying the wines that we will be leaving in homes for buyers when they move in. we have also formed a bond with Andy from Fanny’s Of Hanover, a local deli that specialises in quality foods and organic produce.”

“We genuinely care about community and we are confident that we can combine that with our work and the success of our company”

Taking new approaches is exciting, and becoming a respected part of the community too. What else do you have planned?
José: “We have an exhibition as part of the Artists Open Houses programme this month. That is one of the ways we will involve the local community and people will be able to come in to simply look at the work on the walls. That will give us a great opportunity to engage with people, even if they are not in the market to buy or to let. We are also sponsoring a local production in this year’s Brighton Fringe which will be taking place in Hanover. It is a light-hearted play about house sharing, which we thought fitted in quite nicely with us. It’s called Housemates.

You seem to have a passion for working in a way that embraces good old fashioned values…
José: “We do, but not at the expense of offering the very best of services that employ the very latest methods. We will utilise state-of-the-art technology but beyond that we will offer a totally bespoke marketing strategy for each property that we bring to market. As standard we will include high quality, wide angle photography and floor plans but will also offer lots of add on services, from targeted marketing to solo advertising campaigns online and in the press. Flexibility will be one of our major selling points; being small means you can offer a far more versatile range of services to your customers and we are both small and dynamic, a winning combination. Flexibility also means being there at times to suit our clients; there will be no nine to five metality here, and appointments and viewings will be arranged as and when they are required. We see making ourselves available as a key to our continuing success.

James: “We also like to think outside the box. Our way of selling property will not be just about fielding responses, it will be far more proactive. We will be looking at ways of finding the right home for the right buyer, matching people with property, sometimes introducing them to homes they might not have considered, in areas they might not have thought of looking at. Using our combined experience and creative way of working we will be far more about finding people the right home than simply selling property.”

How large a role does the internet play in the success of your business?
Jim: “The web is a key part of modern estate agency and there is no doubt that a presence there is an essential. But along with that we believe in a strong street presence and media exposure. Our new office looks great and we have spent a lot of time and money, using local craftsmen, to reinstate the traditional Victorian shop frontage, again working with people from the local community. The web will also give us that link to the much broader market. Much emphasis is placed on what is called the “London Factor” and it no doubt exists. What perhaps is not so clear is that the “London Factor” does not exist only at the top end of the market, the properties in and above the million pound bracket. There are plenty of buyers who want to move to Brighton at all levels of the property market and we aim to cater for them all.

“We also believe in being as ecologically sound as we possibly can, keeping paper use down to a minimum and where we do use paper and print making it really worthwhile. When we were just a letting agency we discovered that we had to set and maintain certain standards. Now that we are expanding into sales and growing in every sense we can see that those standards are simply a minimum and that we should always be seeking new ways of increasing and improving those standards. The sales and lettings elements of what we do will be the core of our business, but they will not define us. We genuinely care about community and we are confident that we can combine that with our work and the success of our company.

“We want to thank the tradesman that have helped us with our new office: AANA property maintenance, ALGAS Heating, Mark Spence Electricia, Harmony Carpets, Sam Parsons Plumbing, Jon from Form Woodwork and special thanks to Jeremy and Emily. We also thank Henry and Cassie from Butlers and Andy from Fanny’s of Hanover.”

José Quintana, Jim Quintana and James Beale have a clear vision of where they are right now and where they want to be in the future, a local company bringing a world of experience to the table.

Q Sales & Lettings,
195 Lewes Road, Brighton
01273 622664
www.qsalesandlettings.co.uk

Butlers Wine Cellar – A great local independent, knowledgeable wine specialists at 247 Queens Park Road and 88 St George’s Road

Fanny’s of Hanover – Our local delicatessen specialising in organic, locally sourced fine foods 135a Islingword Road and now 80 Old London Road in Patcham.