Ladies and gentlemen, happy Friday and welcome back to another SLG meetup. I hope everybody is doing phenomenal this beautiful day. Now we're gonna be heading all the way to London to have with us our next guest. His name is our friend Grant James Bates and he is a superstar agent also considered the coolest agent by certain magazines.
He is a very very well known guy when he comes to luxury real estate in London. He's also been named and awarded number one UK agent by the Times. He's also top producer and he's the director at Hampton's 1869 which is also real estate brokerage. So very excited about having him here today.
Hey, how are you doing? I'm doing great. What about yourself? I'm okay, apart from like half of my head is cut off on this video.
I need to move back. I'm all right. You okay? Yeah, we see you phenomenal.
How are things in the UK? Brilliant. I mean, I don't know how much you know about it or how much you've read about it. But it's the hottest market we've seen on record.
There's the hottest market put into perspective since 1989 which was one of the historic market peaks. And it's safe to say things are good. Look, I'm very happy for yourself. I know definitely we've seen a huge growth when it comes to the real estate demand.
We're there in the UK specifically in London. And now we're going to start seeing a bit more of fluctuation. Now with the borders opening up a bit more here in Miami, we obviously have seen that tremendously. So we want to know more about yourself, about what's going on in London that makes it so exciting for individuals to be invested in the real estate there.
So tell us a little bit about yourself first. So I've got my name called Hampton's and I primarily deal in the prime market, which is typically sort of five to 10 million pounds in the occasion. And when I started when I was 17, I started working in Sudbury, Wembley, Wembley is the home of the England National Team Football Stadium. If you're from the other side of the pond and you're not sure where that is.
Not particularly affluent area, but that's where I started at 17. And then from there, I moved to the square mile, which is like, I guess, the equivalent of your Wall Street. Because I worked there for about four or five years and then moved to the company that I'm now selling, selling prime, listing and selling prime real estate. Super, very nice.
Besides that, I mean, you've known how to get yourself well positioned. Because personal branding in this industry is key and you've done a really great job by creating a huge following by also getting yourself awarded and featuring some of the top magazine. Yeah. Coolest agent.
Super exciting. Number one agent. Like what's going on in there? Yeah, I mean, it's been great.
Obviously, personal branding in the UK probably isn't as prominent as it is in the US in terms of how it's used over their personal branding with brokers. So it's still relatively new, I think, in the UK. So I was one of the first and probably am still one of the only brokers that use social media and use their public profile to really generate business, I guess. Right.
That's what we're looking to do. And so to hold ourselves accountable and give our clients a platform that they can use as well. But yeah, it's just really spiralled and potentially, I guess, the rarity of UK agents building a public profile has helped not to take anything away from the achievements, but it definitely helps that it's a bit more a USB. And yeah, since then, like you say, the financial times, telegraph, the times, living, et cetera, I've got another piece coming out with living, et cetera in January.
And my focus really, as well as the prime market is on interior design homes, architecturally designed homes, what we call turnkey properties, the properties that are ready to move into, which are doing particularly well in the current climate as well. Super enough. Now, let's just back up one second about what you were saying, because personal branding, obviously, here in the US, we've seen that tremendous importance of it and more people are getting into that train. But in the UK, you were and still are one of the first pioneers to really get your platforms to the next level, getting featured in all the magazines.
How have you seen the growth on your clientele through these channels? Oh, yeah, phenomenal. I mean, if I think about my yearly business for 2020 last year, obviously, don't have the end of your figures for this year yet. But my yearly business last year, 15% of it came from Instagram directly.
And I'd say this year, it's probably closer to 2025%. So if you compare that to the major property portals we have over here, so like Right Move and Zoopla, which is, I think you have Zillow. If you think 22% of our sales come from that typically per year, then 15% to come from a platform, which a lot of realtors aren't utilizing. And only one social media platform as well, because I don't have the time for YouTube and TikTok, et cetera, at the moment.
It's phenomenal. Everyone needs to be doing it. I think regardless of what industry you're in, really, I think it's so powerful. Amazing.
Well, we are tip or advice that you'll get for those that are trying to get themselves into this world of social media, but also more specifically about getting noticed by this big press. Biggest tip I would give anyone, and this applies to, I think, a lot of areas of life, is say yes more and just go for it when you're even when you're nervous or anxious or concerned. You've got to be prepared to look stupid for a period of time to get good at anything, right? Like, whatever you do.
Like, you weren't just, you didn't just start your page and have a hundred and thousand plus followers overnight. Like, I'm sure if you look back at some of your content from your first few days on Instagram, you might think it's maybe not of anywhere near the same quality as what you're putting out now. Let me ask you, because you're obviously working on some of the prime real estate in London and exterior of it. Now, what have you seen throughout these last few months when it comes to trends?
Is there any specific type of product that have been written about? Yeah. Well, I think the biggest trend we've seen across, well, two trends, really, but the biggest trend we've probably seen across the pandemic is desire for outdoor space. And desire for what I think you call the hotelization of the home.
That this is relevant actually to the piece that's coming out with living, et cetera, and then Gerber in January. But what we're talking about really is hotelization of home. And what I mean by that is people want turnkey properties, right? They want everything at home.
They want a gym. They want a cinema room. They want a principal suite. They want, you know, a luxury spa bathroom.
They want a Japanese toilet. They want everything at home. So they don't need to leave their home unless they really want to. And now what's happening?
A lot of the properties we're selling or certainly the properties that are selling the best are these turnkey properties. And alongside that, another big reason for that and for the demand for those types of properties is what the pandemic has done to supply costs in terms of building materials, in terms of arc checks, in terms of builders, they've rocketed by 30, 40%. So that in turn has pushed up the premium for turnkey homes and then similar to what you're seeing in the US with the fiscal policy and the monetary policy from the government, low interest rates, ability to leverage ability to borrow. That's really bolstering the demand for those turnkey homes because people can leverage on the finance and stay liquid.
Now you were talking about some of the demographics of high-majibre individuals, but do you see a specific trend of either local or international buyers or it's a mix? It's a mix. I think London is always very strong to British domestic. So for people that live in London because they understand it.
And sometimes the struggle you can have sometimes with London is because there's a lot of old property, period property, Georgian, Victorian, 17, 1800s. Sometimes you're with your biggest buyer demographics being Middle East and Far East, which is primarily their primarily new countries, new cities that have been built over the last 50 years or so. There can be a lack of understanding of how old are properties as to why you would pay millions of pounds for an older property. So sometimes with the classic London townhouses, there are less international buyers, but we're starting to see them come back to the fall like you say with the ease and travel restrictions for the new build properties.
So that didn't actually slow a little bit because off-line sales haven't been as buoyant. But London, we know it's still one of the best cities along with places like Miami and New York to invest your money in real estate because historically it performs well in terms of capital growth. So it's a safe haven in a way. Oh yeah.
I'll be going to London either December or with the hands. I want to see it. I want to see it. Now, but I love it.
It's a great energy, especially now things have been open again. And with such huge demand for these properties, you've still seen more action. And I believe that this is going to be continuous going like that. Now, I always had this question and I want to know your answer because luxury comes in so many different shapes and forms.
And at the end of the day, that's something personal. So why is it really luxury to you? Oh, what is luxury to me? I think to be honest, everyone's concept to everyone's interpretation of a question like that has changed now.
I don't necessarily think it's as material as it used to be. You know, part of me thinks maybe two years ago, I'm saying, what am I saying? I'm saying a 9-11, I'm saying a plain English bathroom, I'm saying, you know, sub-zero and wolf appliances in the kitchen, I'm saying, you know, I am finished. I think now it's, I don't want to be too spiritual about it, but I think it's more of a work-life balance, really.
If you can even interpret, interpret luxury as that, but I definitely think that I'm. Oh, yeah, I'm not saying it. Yeah, I think the pandemic's been a reminder for a lot of people of mortality, right? Like it's, you know, it's a case of, wow, like I want my life to be a certain way.
And if you're fortunate enough to be able to have luxury items on top of that work-life balance, then great. But for me, I think it's more about getting that work-life balance, right? And if the 9-11s and the nice kitchens and bathrooms come along with it, then fantastic. There you go.
That's phenomenal, no great answer. Now, I want to ask you something a bit more personal because I'm a big fan of the 5am club. By the way, for those watching or listening to this, 5am club, I wrote each other my grade book and overall it's just a concept, you know, it's a community of people that wake up at 5am and kind of crash the day, dominate your morning, right? So tell us a little bit about how important it has been for you.
Yeah, really important for me. I've been doing it for quite a few years now and I've read that book actually, but the, when I started thinking about it, it was actually when I read something about Mark Wahlberg. You know, he gets up at like 2am or something insane to like train. And I found it really useful primarily for my mental health, really, to like get up, get stuff done early and own the morning.
And I think the reason the morning is key because I have people criticise that and say, well, surely it's the same as working late into the evening. But I really think that the reason the morning's key for me is because that's probably when I'm at my sharpest, that's when my mind's at its best. And I also think it feels like a head start on all of your competitors. Because if you can clear your inbox and you can deal with the necessary task, things you have to do, the obligations, then you can spend the rest of the day growing.
You've done the obligations, you've done the things you've had to do, and then you can start actually growing your company, growing your client base rather than spending hours catching up. And also, I think there's something about, you know, no one, there's no distractions because no one else is up. So, you know, you can really both and get into it. But I get like, if you've got clients all over the world, it's not always possible if you've got a conference call, you need to take it at a certain time.
And you might, you've spoken to people in the Far East at midnight, you might not be getting up at five o'clock. So, you know, it's not for everyone. But for me, yeah, huge. Amazing.
Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm sure that a lot of people tuning in today, I agree with you. So I'm wondering if I say, it's a bit tough for me. So it doesn't really need to work for everybody the same way, but definitely to keep that routine and check and especially doing it at times where there's no so much noise.
It's critical for your success. So thank you for sharing that. I'm obviously in the same boat in you. I love Waking Aburley as well.
And good. In the morning. Yeah, you've got the beach. You can just like run down the beach, right?
I would get the cold weather. So it's kind of easier to kind of get the day going versus day that the blankets because it's a cold day outside. So, but still, I mean, the mentality is how the families are of your success is due to your daily routine. So this is great.
And thanks for sharing everything. I'm not sure if we're missing anything in particular that you would like to share. No, no, particularly adding, you know, it's good to chat to you and to discuss everything with God's London market. I appreciate you.
You have me on. Thank you so much. I'm for sure everybody that is watching this. Make sure to follow Grant.
He's a great guy, very knowledgeable, very fun guy. And I'm sure that very helpful for anything related to luxury real estate in London. So please give him a follow, check out what you have to and we'll see each other next time. Thanks, man.
Thank you. Take care. And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it.
And remember, embrace it's beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro and I'll see you next time.