James Wells, Managing Director, Propia Limited

Q: What does it say on your business card?
Other than my personal details, the business card carries our logo with our tag line: "Unlocking your property's potential". This precisely and concisely sums up what Propia does, we help property owners achieve the natural ceiling price for their property.

Q: Who are Propia Limited?
Propia Limited was co-founded by James Wells and Charlie Hurlbatt in early 2014, with the sole focus of adding value to properties and creating a more marketable asset (whether that's to sell or let) through a unique combination of residential property market insight, building expertise and project management.

Q: How did it all start?
The original inspiration came through the desire to create a finance package aimed at helping property owners fund improvements prior to the sale of their asset. Through further research we realised that only does this service not exist, but nor do the advice and implementation parts in one simple package. We therefore set out to help homeowners add value and, at the time of writing, are developing the finance package to compliment this.

Q: Why choose Propia Limited?
As far as I know, we are the only company offering this complete service. It is possible to replicate our offering through an amalgamation of other services but the way we are set up means that we offer completely impartial advice and are able to deliver this at a very competitive price.

Q: What are your unique selling points?
Our initial consultation is completely free, this includes a free Local Market Report. A paid for Comprehensive Market Report is also available on request.

Each stage of our process is independent from the others; for example, just because we provide the advice you are under no obligation to use our build service or home-staging service.

We combine the research, advice, design, build, project management and home-staging all under one roof.

We understand budgets. This means we help devise and source cost-effective solutions as well as working to a pre-agreed fixed price. We use a bespoke contract to give the client peace of mind.

Q: Where do you currently work?
We operate solely across London, this allows us to focus our expertise on the London market and deliver a service with a team we trust.

Q: How do you overcome your competitors?
We set ourselves apart from any competitors through our attention to detail and exceptional customer service; renovation projects can throw up numerous queries from the client and we are always on hand to answer them quickly and honestly.

Q: How do you create value for your clients?
The wonder of our service is that the value we create for clients can be measured in pounds and pence (mostly pounds)! Our services ultimately increase the sales or letting price achieved, what better way to create value for our clients!?

Q: What are your plans for the coming year?
We are working hard on rolling out our Deferred Payment platform. The exact mechanics of this are under wraps, but the product will allow our clients to pay for our services out of the proceeds of the sale of their property such that they are never out of pocket.