Pattinson estate agents was launched by Keith Pattinson on 4th July 1977, it is no coincidence that it was Independence Day, being independent is central to our company ethos. 21 Ridley Place, Newcastle upon Tyne was our first office and remains our Head Office today. We have grown from one office with one man selling three properties to twenty nine offices across the North East with around 200 members of staff. We don’t just sell houses we also have commercial, survey, property management and auction departments and are proud to be members of the RICS. In nearly forty years estate agency has changed a huge amount and we have been proud to be leading the way. It’s hard to imagine that an estate agent would charge for a valuation now, but when Keith first offered ‘Free Valuations’ other agents laughed at the idea! Expanding from Ridley Place new offices were opened in Prudhoe, Ponteland, Whitley Bay and Sunderland, and other branches followed soon after. We purchased a property management company and became one of the first estate agents to offer sales and lettings, we still work with some of our original landlords, over 30 years later! With de-regulation of the financial services sector in the late 1980’s, a partnership was formed with the Northern Rock Building Society which fuelled further expansion however a short period of time we went our separate ways and became independent again. We have always embraced technology and were one of the first agents to build a website, to use a computerised database (instead of index cards!) and continue to look for ways to innovate to offer a better service to our clients. We diversified into property auctions over twenty years ago, offering not only a traditional option of exchange of contracts on the fall of the hammer but also a ‘Conditional Auction’ with twenty eight days to exchange contracts for buyers requiring mortgages. As all of our branches are interlinked we were able to open a Regional Sales Centre which is open extended hours and also takes the overspill of calls from branches when they are busy, this improves our customer service by ensure that we answer every call. We started a national auction network to enable us to sell properties outside of the North East, which continues to grow. Whilst we have grown we have always tried to keep true to our original values of offering excellent customer service and focusing on helping our clients achieve results. In November 2013 Caroline Pattinson became Managing Director, as the name suggests there is a family connection, she is Keith’s daughter and has been involved in the business from a young age. As a child she had to photocopy the property details and stick on the photographs, open the post and help out with filing. In school and university holidays she worked in 19 different offices, property management, credit control, referencing, auction and commercial. Having worked in most areas of the business and managed a number of different branches she has a good understanding of the business and industry as a whole and continues to look to grow the company.
