Six things a proper estate agent does.
We do all six.
Professional marketing, a dedicated team that picks up the phone and responds to messages, social media that gets your house seen by the right people, photography designed to sell not stall, a proactive agent and serious negotiation, and real sales progression from accepted offer to completion. Here's what each one looks like in practice.
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Properties handled across the patch
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The six. Concretely, what each one means.
Most estate agents promise the same six things. The difference is what each one looks like once you've actually instructed them. Use this page as a checklist when you're choosing an estate agent, in the North East or anywhere else. If anything below doesn't line up with what your current agent is doing, that's the gap to talk to us about.
01
Professional marketing
Marketing brief written for your house, not a template. Rightmove launches on a Tuesday or Thursday morning, the days serious buyers actually search. Social posts go up the same day. We track who clicks, who saves, and who books a viewing.
02
A small team that cares about the work
You're not passed through a chain of trainees. The people who quote your valuation are the same people who sell your house and get it to completion. Four of us. You meet the team before you sign anything, not after.
03
Social media that gets the listing seen
We post your house properly, not as filler. Short-form video, reels, and stories where the audience actually scrolls. Our content is intelligently designed around your property, and targeted to your ideal buyer. The brief is to drive viewings, not to just look pretty on our feed.
04
High-level photography we sign off ourselves
Floor plans always. Lighting and angles set up properly. Edits we check before they go live. No phone shots of a kitchen on a cloudy Tuesday. The listing earns its place on the page.
05
A proactive agent
Weekly calls whether there's news or not. If your house has had three viewings and no offer by week two, we tell you why and what we're changing about the price, the photography, the copy, or the buyer pool. The opposite of going quiet.
06
Real sales progression
This is the bit most agents stop doing after sale agreed, and the bit that breaks most deals. We chase all the solicitors, regularly, until completion. Responding proactively to issues, panics, and survey scares. Always working to find a solution that works for everyone. The average sale falls through at week six over searches or mortgage delays, and that is exactly the week most agents have moved on. We have not.
And what we don't do.
Most agencies will tell you what they do. Less common is being clear about what they refuse to do. If you're working out what to look for in a good estate agent, this list is the second half of the answer. Read it as a contract with yourself, not just with us.
More on the things agents do that they shouldn't: Why estate agents inflate valuations, Stale on Rightmove: a walk-through, and What a fair valuation looks like.
The team behind your sale.
A small team that picks up the phone. You won't be working with whoever has capacity that week. The people you meet are the people who quote, list, market, and progress your sale to completion. Years of buying, selling, and developing across the North East sit behind every valuation we put on the wall.
Founder
Oliver Whittaker
Has bought, sold, and developed property across the North East for over a decade. Founded WPG to bring that operating experience to the open market.
General Manager
Chloe Whittaker
Heads up the WPG team and runs operations end to end. Ten years in property, with a specialism in unsticking deals before they fall through.
Investments
Leon Kyle
Runs the acquisition funnel: direct-to-vendor, agent network, off-market introductions. Personally sourced more than 300 North East properties.
Estate Agent
Chelsea Cullen
Runs every vendor relationship in person. Walks the property, looks you in the eye, tells you what we can really get.
What people ask first.
What makes you different from the big agents?+
A good estate agent does six things properly: honest valuation, professional marketing, social that drives viewings, photography signed off internally, weekly contact, and real sales progression to completion. Most agents on your street are part of a national chain running a branch. We're not. We live in the patch we sell in. We pick up the phone. We do the bits other agents treat as optional, like progression and weekly contact.
What if you've never sold on my street?+
We'll tell you. The valuation is built on Land Registry comparables for streets near yours plus what's currently on the market, walked through with you in person. If we haven't sold three doors down, we'll still know what the house should sell for, and we'll show you the comparables we used. The honest answer to 'have you sold on my street' matters less than the honest answer to 'can you back the number up'.
At WPG we access information that would have been insider knowledge just a decade ago. The data we have at our fingertips is fast, in-depth, and detailed enough to price quickly and accurately across a much larger market.
You can trust us here. We've used the same data in real life to make investment and development decisions in the millions.
Do you work with investors as well as residential sellers?+
Yes. The investor side is the original part of the business, built on years of buying, selling, and developing across the North East. The estate-agent side is newer. The combination is the point: we know what investor-buyers want, and we know what residential buyers want, and we can route your sale into whichever pool will move faster.
How quickly do you come back?+
One working day from when the form lands. Often the same day. If you send the address in the morning, you'll usually have a call back before close of business. On the first call we walk through three Land Registry comparables, a condition adjustment, and which buyer pool we'd route the property into.
Send us the postcode.
We'll bring the comparables.
Drop us your details and the postcode. If you know the street or house number, add that too. We'll check recent comparable sales before the first call, so the conversation is useful from minute one.
- Three comparables and a condition adjustment, written down.
- Open-market, fast-cash, or hybrid route, your call.
- A useful first call within one working day.