How one agency drives its strategy with an ethical vision

"We started as a building and refurbishing company eight years ago, mainly for social housing clients," says Paul Rimmer, Managing Director at Revive Property Sales & Lettings. "Along the way, we've identified and refurbished properties for investors and bought and refurbished properties for ourselves. Then, in April last year, we launched our sales and letting business."

This transition into sales and letting was a natural progression from their refurbishment activities. "The two companies marry up. We've got landlords or investors who'll come to us and identify a property with us. They'll buy it, we refurb it and tenant or sell it, so it's a hands off investment for them," says Paul.

The company's strategy has always been driven by its ethical vision, and extends to the landlords that it works with. "I want the people who follow us on Facebook, who are in our groups, to know that when we put a property on the market, there's a good landlord and good standard of property behind it," says Paul.

In line with this strategy, Paul emphasises the value of supporting social housing in their local area. "We put landlords in touch with organisations that have taken properties on five-year leases for social housing, we do a lot of work in the community."

The government's Social Housing White Paper published in November 2020 highlights the importance of preventing stigma in social housing, something landlords may need to be educated around.

"Our social housing contacts are very much relationships in their infancy but growing steadily. We don't just offer a private tenancy. We can offer a mix to suit our investor's strategy - and it also depends on the mentality of the investor," he says. "Social housing can be stigmatised, so we're dealing with leases where there's maintenance covered so our investors know there are options there."

Training initiatives

Alongside a focus on social housing, Paul noticed the lack of understanding around the training opportunities available for children in care in the construction industry. "The industry was saying there was no funding in place, but I could see that there was funding, they just didn't know how to access it."

This led the agency to set up its own training options for young people in their local area of Liverpool. "We want to be training individual young persons into construction or into a lettings environment, it's something we're trying to push," says Paul.

"Over the last eight years on the building side, through Revive Property Services, we've been taking on a young person from a local authority, to give them training in all the different roles within the business, to see what suits them."

At the other end of the scale, the agency supports the older generation, by recruiting through job centres. "In job centres, people can be stigmatised" says Paul. "So my vision's always been to try and help where we can. We've always done that, that's why it's 'revive'. Bringing a property back to life, with a strong commitment to social values."