Glentree was founded in 1976 as the forerunner of modern estate agency as we know it today. Crusty old colonels bedecked with medals, sporting tweed jackets and handlebar moustaches were the service providers at the time. You can imagine, therefore, how refreshing it was for someone selling their home to meet a young lion from Glentree, brimming with enthusiasm and thirsting to make deals happen for the clients. With its bright green Floridian-coloured livery, the company offered an unabashed dynamic selling service, which consumers had wanted for so long in order to promote the sale or rental of their single largest asset – their home.

Our aspiration for clients was to always ‘turn base metal into gold’ by achieving audacious values for the letting or sale of their properties. Against all odds, we did this for ourselves by floating the business many years ago, and our Trevor Abrahmsohn launched Glentree in 1976 with the ambition of achieving unrivalled property values for his clients market capitalisation became double that of the large, multi-office agency chains at the time, which amounted to £200 million in today’s money.

Today, our USP is the use of strategic meetings between clients in order to ‘knock heads together’ and get the deal done. The last 10 per cent gap between buyer and seller is always the most difficult, and our job is to not only bridge this, but consolidate the deal at the crescendo. The task is closer to a psychological journey, where sometimes the mental software of both parties needs to be slightly adjusted – by us – to stop them becoming an inadvertent obstacle to an excellent deal. This is a subtle, nuanced process and is the antithesis of the ‘foot jammed in the door’ method of selling used by certain high-profile agents today, who crave attention regardless of merit. We are only happy when all participants are kicking their heels in the air, which would otherwise reflect a lop-sided transaction, destined for failure.

Somewhat immodestly, Glentree has been likened to the Goldman Sachs of the estate agency industry. If we are on your side, winning the contest is the only option. Today, we are a family-run business, with our values very much intact, and we treat every property as if we own it ourselves. Invariably, our clients become our friends and it’s not unusual for us to act for three generations of the same family, across time. We founded OnTheMarket.com and, jointly, Fabric, which was an attempt to protect the community interests of the industry, without any gain whatsoever for ourselves. Our probity and commitment are undiminished. We are totally focused on our catchment area and as such, we know a lot about a little! We share lofty aspirations with our clients, and we love what we do.