88. Settled

Founders: Gemma and Paul Young
Founded: September 2014 (launched October 2015)
Website: www.settled.co.uk

Moving home is still regarded as one of the most stressful times in our lives, taking an average of 16 weeks – if you’re lucky.

One in three house sales still fall through after an offer, resulting in £250m a year in wasted fees for UK consumers.

Having worked as estate agents where they got to peek “under the hood”, brother-and-sister duo Gemma and Paul Young were familiar with these pain points and understood the limitations of the property market.

Perceiving the industry to be largely business rather than customer-focused, they began to explore the potential for a customer-centric, digital solution that would make for hassle-free home buying and selling.

And, in 2015, they realised this idea by launching Settled.

An end-to-end platform, Settled enables those selling their home to book a free visit where its team will take care of the photos, floor plans and provide a free valuation. From £499, it then posts your ad across popular property sites and helps with viewings and offers.

Offering low-costs and minimum effort for the customer, Settled’s consumer-centric approach has been very effective.

More than £300m worth of homes have been sold through Settled to date which is said to have saved customers £6m in estate agency fees. The near future will see the platform further streamline its service to create an even better customer experience.

With growth on the ascent, the Youngs believe that developments in the current landscape will only serve to work in Settled’s favour:

“The world is moving with us – the government’s efforts to modernise the buying and selling process and the wider regulatory developments which are taking place mean a new era of property technology is emerging”.