Why We Keep the Portfolio Small
57 units across Oxford. Most agents in the city are bigger. We get asked why we're not.
The answer is that we don't want to be. Not yet, and probably not ever in the way most agents grow.
The growth trap most letting agents fall into
A typical letting agent's incentive is to add doors. More doors equals more management fees, more commission, more sales by the office. The unit economics push the model toward volume.
The problem is what happens at the door level. As an agent grows, the same systems that worked at 30 properties start to creak at 100. Tenant communications go to a junior. Maintenance gets logged but not chased. Inspections become tick-box. The landlord's call goes to whichever account manager picked up. Quality drifts.
By the time anyone notices, the brand reputation is already changing. Tenants leave bad reviews. Landlords renew at lower fees or move on. The agent is now bigger but worse, and stuck either reinvesting in service to claw it back or pushing harder on volume to compensate.
We watched this happen to a few competitors before we'd taken on our 20th unit. We decided not to play that game.
What we trade growth for
We've stayed at 57 units because we trade growth for three things.
Control. Every refurb is scoped and supervised by Jacob, our in-house electrician and plumber, before anyone else touches it. Every viewing is conducted by Josh. Every tenant communication runs through COHO, and Katie reviews the operational risk log every week. At our size, nothing slips quietly.
Retention. Tenants stay longer when the property runs properly. Landlords renew when the rent has been paid on time for seven years. We've paid out over £1M in guaranteed rent across that period without missing a month. That's only sustainable because the operation is tight. It's only tight because it's small enough to stay tight.
Picky landlord selection. We turn down landlord enquiries that don't fit. Properties in poor condition where the landlord won't refurbish. Landlords who want the highest possible rent regardless of tenant fit. Houses in locations where the demographic doesn't match what we operate. Saying no on those is easier when growth isn't the goal.
The numbers behind the model
Seven years of zero voids. £1M+ paid out to landlords in guaranteed rent. Property Entrepreneur of the Year 2025. Two electricians and a qualified plumber on the team.
None of those numbers exist in a portfolio that grew aggressively.
You can't run zero voids across 200 units with the same hands-on model. You can't keep the same level of refurb supervision when you're taking on a property a month. You can't have all three directors involved in every problem when there are too many problems to track.
So we stay small enough to mean it.
Who this is for and who it isn't
If you're a landlord who values:
The same number to call every time
Trades-trained directors making decisions on your property
A rent that arrives the same date every month, every month
Genuine standards over scale
We're for you.
If you want the cheapest fee in the city, the quickest sign-up, or the biggest brand by volume, we're not. There are agents who do that well. We're not them.
For investors and capital partners, the same logic applies. We invest in what we can run. Our scale on the management side is a feature, not a limitation. Every project we take into Haines Developments goes through people who see it from acquisition to first rent and every month after.
The bottom line
Quality compounds. Scale dilutes.
We've chosen the side that pays out for tenants, landlords, and partners over the long term, and we've stuck with it for seven years.
Stay small enough to mean it.
