Firm paying vendors up to £800 now raising £5m to e...

Loyalty Street W1, a service that sends cheques to householders which they can cash if they then use a nominated local estate agent when they eventually sell their home, is reported to be in talks to raise £5m to expand across London and then the UK.

The scheme has won a substantial amount of exposure in the past week; it offers from £150 to £800 to the householders in properties it believes are likely to come up for sale in the relatively near future. It makes the selection oh households based on statistical analysis of sales, household moving patterns, Rightmove visits and demographic factors.

It rates local agents with physical high street branches - currently only in south west London - and informs the recipients of the cheques that they can get their cash if they use one of Loyalty Street’s nominated local agents to market their homes. Loyalty Street does not get direct commission or membership payments from agents, but does get a cut of commission if an instruction is made.

Now the Daily Mail is reporting that the service is in unspecified discussions to raise £5m and expand its service, initially across London and then further afield.

On the Loyalty Street website, this is how it describes its selection process for estate agents:

Loyalty Street has access to highly accurate sales performance data. Things like: the speed of their average sale time; what prices they achieve in relation to the asking price; and completion rates. Once the top six [agents in a locality] have been ascertained, it’s time to meet these agents to take a closer look at other factors such as: office location; how many staff are local; and whether they use mainstream marketing sites such as Zoopla and Rightmove to really give your sale a boost. Loyalty Street visit each estate agency branch and then each agent is given a rating from 1-5 and only then are the top estate agents chosen to become the panel. For the first time ever, this information is now available to you so, you can be sure that when you register with Loyalty Street that you will getting access to a panel of the top performing estate agents in your area.

Loyalty Street is very new - as of yesterday evening it had fewer than 100 followers on Twitter. It is fronted by former Bond Girl actress Fiona Fullerton, who has been a long-standing buy to let enthusiast and property writer.