Ivory House, St Katherine Docks.

In August 2020, when the UK was at the height of the pandemic, selling a home without the ability to conduct a viewing in person was almost impossible. One of the three penthouses in Ivory House was for sale with Anderson Rose and a very well-known international brand. Both listings had photos and a floor plan, a well-written description and a team of agents hoping for lockdown to be over. The important difference was that before lockdown, Anderson Rose had produced a video tour presented by Jon Byers which provided the viewer with a tour around the apartment as if they were there in person. One hot afternoon, while Jon was sitting at his desk at home, the office line rang. A South African voice got straight to the point, “As soon as Covid is over, I will be coming to London to take up a senior position in a FTSE 100 company and need to secure a home before then. I don’t want to rent and would prefer to buy. Now, this penthouse in St Katherine Docks…is it as good as you say it is in the video?” To which Jon assured him that it was! “Well, I like it and I will pay the asking price as long as it is turn-key right down to the peanuts in the jar!”

The sale was agreed and the transaction completed at £3.65 million a few weeks later. That was quite some faith that the buyer had in the accuracy of the video and when Jon asked him whether it was indeed the video that caused him to connect with Anderson Rose and not the other better-known brand, he replied, “I could see that it was the flat I wanted, but I needed to see who I was dealing with. I looked at the whites of your eyes and believed that I could trust you!” And he could. It is what this business was built on. We even bought him a jar and filled it with peanuts.