As featured in [Estate Agency Today,](https://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/features/2026/04/the-agencies-winning-right-now-are-not-the-busiest-they-have-the-best-systems/) Giles Ellwood explains why the agencies winning more instructions in today’s market are not doing more activity, they are building better systems for visibility, prospecting, conversations, and consistency. _Giles Ellwood, CEO of Homesearch, on why more activity is not the answer to a tougher market, and what agents should actually do instead._ I've spent a lot of this year talking to estate agency owners and directors about growth. What strikes me most is not what they say they need. It's what they're already doing. Most of the agencies I speak to are busy. Their teams are prospecting, marketing, booking valuations. They have a CRM. They have data. Many have added new tools in the last twelve months. And yet results feel inconsistent. Some months are strong. Others are not. The pipeline rises and falls in ways no one can quite explain. Good weeks feel like they depend more on who happens to be motivated than on anything structural. The honest answer is uncomfortable. More effort is not the fix. More tools are not the fix. The agencies pulling ahead in this market are not doing more things. They are doing fewer things, more systematically, every week. ## **The market has changed. The approach has not.** The conditions agents are working in right now are genuinely more demanding. Instructions are harder to win. Vendors are more selective and more informed. They want specifics, not reassurances. At the same time, the way buyers and tenants discover property is shifting, and shifting faster than most agencies have registered. AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity now answer property questions directly. A buyer types a specific query and gets a curated shortlist. They never visit a portal. They never scroll a page. They just get an answer. Some listings appear in that answer. Many do not. Not because there is anything wrong with the property, but because the underlying data is not structured in a way these tools can read. The opportunity is gone before the agent knows it existed. This is not a trend to monitor. It is already happening, and it is already shaping what vendors expect. “Where will my property appear, and how will buyers find it?” is a question valuers are being asked now, not one they will be asked in two years. The agents who can answer it credibly will own ground at the point of instruction. The ones who cannot will lose that ground quietly, without ever knowing why. ## **The four things that actually drive instructions** When I look at the agencies performing well in this market, they tend to have the same four things working together. Not all of them would describe it this way. But the pattern is consistent. 1\. **Visibility.** Not just on portals, but wherever buyers, tenants and vendors are now looking, including AI-driven search. Listings that are correctly structured and discoverable in those environments generate enquiries that competitors miss. More importantly, they are visible to vendors assessing who to instruct. 2\. **Opportunity.** Most agencies have more pipeline than they realise, sitting untouched inside their CRM. Past applicants who paused their search. Vendors who said not yet. Landlords who moved one portfolio and are likely to move another. The challenge is not that the data does not exist. It is knowing which of those people are active in the market right now, so the team calls the right ones rather than working through a list that is largely cold. 3\. **Conversations.** Instructions are not won through marketing. They are won in the moments when an agent answers a difficult question with confidence, backs a pricing recommendation with evidence, or handles an objection before the vendor has finished raising it. When agents have the right information in those moments, the conversation changes. When they have to call back, the moment has passed. 4\. **Consistency.** The one most often overlooked. Even strong agencies operate in bursts. A motivated week followed by a quieter one. A high-performing negotiator carrying the branch. Growth that depends on individual effort rather than repeatable structure does not compound. It just fluctuates. ## **Connection is the missing ingredient** Each of those four is addressable on its own. What is less often addressed is the connection between them. Visibility that does not lead to identified opportunity is wasted. Opportunity without the confidence to convert it in conversation is frustrating. Conversations without consistent follow-up structure are inconsistent. And none of it compounds if the whole business is not working to the same rhythm. This is why adding another tool rarely fixes a growth problem. Most tools solve one of the four. Very few help agencies connect all four into something that actually repeats. ## **Start with the constraint that matters most** The mistake I see most often is trying to fix everything at once, or adding a new tool in the hope it shifts performance on its own. The agencies making the most progress this year have done the opposite. They have identified the one thing that is most holding them back, fixed that, and built from there. If the immediate problem is too few valuation conversations, the answer is usually inside the existing database, not in generating more leads. If the problem is losing instructions at valuation, the answer is usually about what happens in the conversation itself. If results vary too much across branches, the answer is structure, not talent. And if the problem is visibility, particularly with vendors asking harder questions about where their property will actually appear, the fix needs to be concrete and differentiated. None of this requires a major rebuild. It requires honesty about the constraint that matters most, and the discipline to fix it properly before moving on to the next one. ## **The final thought** The market is not going to get easier in the short term. But the agencies that build the right structure now will find it easier than everyone else. Growth that depends on effort fluctuates. Growth that depends on systems compounds. That is the difference that will show up in the numbers over the next eighteen months. Not who worked the hardest. Who built the system first. _Giles Ellwood is CEO of Homesearch, a UK property data platform that helps estate and letting agents turn data into action and activity into consistent instructions. [homesearch.co.uk](http://homesearch.co.uk)_

Table of contents

The market has changed. The approach has not.

The four things that actually drive instructions

Connection is the missing ingredient

Start with the constraint that matters most

The final thought

As featured in Estate Agency Today, Giles Ellwood explains why the agencies winning more instructions in today’s market are not doing more activity, they are building better systems for visibility, prospecting, conversations, and consistency.

Giles Ellwood, CEO of Homesearch, on why more activity is not the answer to a tougher market, and what agents should actually do instead.

I've spent a lot of this year talking to estate agency owners and directors about growth. What strikes me most is not what they say they need. It's what they're already doing.

Most of the agencies I speak to are busy. Their teams are prospecting, marketing, booking valuations. They have a CRM. They have data. Many have added new tools in the last twelve months.

And yet results feel inconsistent. Some months are strong. Others are not. The pipeline rises and falls in ways no one can quite explain. Good weeks feel like they depend more on who happens to be motivated than on anything structural.

The honest answer is uncomfortable. More effort is not the fix. More tools are not the fix. The agencies pulling ahead in this market are not doing more things. They are doing fewer things, more systematically, every week.

The market has changed. The approach has not.

The conditions agents are working in right now are genuinely more demanding. Instructions are harder to win. Vendors are more selective and more informed. They want specifics, not reassurances.

At the same time, the way buyers and tenants discover property is shifting, and shifting faster than most agencies have registered. AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity now answer property questions directly. A buyer types a specific query and gets a curated shortlist. They never visit a portal. They never scroll a page. They just get an answer.

Some listings appear in that answer. Many do not. Not because there is anything wrong with the property, but because the underlying data is not structured in a way these tools can read. The opportunity is gone before the agent knows it existed.

This is not a trend to monitor. It is already happening, and it is already shaping what vendors expect. “Where will my property appear, and how will buyers find it?” is a question valuers are being asked now, not one they will be asked in two years. The agents who can answer it credibly will own ground at the point of instruction. The ones who cannot will lose that ground quietly, without ever knowing why.

The four things that actually drive instructions

When I look at the agencies performing well in this market, they tend to have the same four things working together. Not all of them would describe it this way. But the pattern is consistent.

1. Visibility. Not just on portals, but wherever buyers, tenants and vendors are now looking, including AI-driven search. Listings that are correctly structured and discoverable in those environments generate enquiries that competitors miss. More importantly, they are visible to vendors assessing who to instruct.

2. Opportunity. Most agencies have more pipeline than they realise, sitting untouched inside their CRM. Past applicants who paused their search. Vendors who said not yet. Landlords who moved one portfolio and are likely to move another. The challenge is not that the data does not exist. It is knowing which of those people are active in the market right now, so the team calls the right ones rather than working through a list that is largely cold.

3. Conversations. Instructions are not won through marketing. They are won in the moments when an agent answers a difficult question with confidence, backs a pricing recommendation with evidence, or handles an objection before the vendor has finished raising it. When agents have the right information in those moments, the conversation changes. When they have to call back, the moment has passed.

4. Consistency. The one most often overlooked. Even strong agencies operate in bursts. A motivated week followed by a quieter one. A high-performing negotiator carrying the branch. Growth that depends on individual effort rather than repeatable structure does not compound. It just fluctuates.

Connection is the missing ingredient

Each of those four is addressable on its own. What is less often addressed is the connection between them.

Visibility that does not lead to identified opportunity is wasted. Opportunity without the confidence to convert it in conversation is frustrating. Conversations without consistent follow-up structure are inconsistent. And none of it compounds if the whole business is not working to the same rhythm.

This is why adding another tool rarely fixes a growth problem. Most tools solve one of the four. Very few help agencies connect all four into something that actually repeats.

Start with the constraint that matters most

The mistake I see most often is trying to fix everything at once, or adding a new tool in the hope it shifts performance on its own.

The agencies making the most progress this year have done the opposite. They have identified the one thing that is most holding them back, fixed that, and built from there.

If the immediate problem is too few valuation conversations, the answer is usually inside the existing database, not in generating more leads. If the problem is losing instructions at valuation, the answer is usually about what happens in the conversation itself. If results vary too much across branches, the answer is structure, not talent. And if the problem is visibility, particularly with vendors asking harder questions about where their property will actually appear, the fix needs to be concrete and differentiated.

None of this requires a major rebuild. It requires honesty about the constraint that matters most, and the discipline to fix it properly before moving on to the next one.

The final thought

The market is not going to get easier in the short term. But the agencies that build the right structure now will find it easier than everyone else.

Growth that depends on effort fluctuates. Growth that depends on systems compounds.

That is the difference that will show up in the numbers over the next eighteen months. Not who worked the hardest. Who built the system first.

Giles Ellwood is CEO of Homesearch, a UK property data platform that helps estate and letting agents turn data into action and activity into consistent instructions. homesearch.co.uk