Estate agent star: 'We aren't all rogues in Porsches'

By Toby Walne for The Mail on Sunday
Updated: 11:18 EDT, 23 May 2011

'We aren't rogues and vagabonds in Porsches with mobile phones attached to our ears ... ok, I do have a Porsche,' says the boss of Countrywide

Back in town: Former Countrywide and Rightmove boss Harry Hill has come out of retirement

The sedate pleasures of fly-fishing and bird-watching couldn't satisfy Harry Hill for long.

Two years ago he stood down as chairman of estate agency giant Countrywide and settled into retirement in his 17th Century pile in rural Essex.

But tomorrow the 63-year-old multi-millionaire will be back at work in London when he launches an online conveyancing service called In-Deed.

Hill, who also founded the £1.2bn property website Rightmove, says: 'A couple of years ago I came home from my job carrying a briefcase for the last time and was looking forward to retirement. For the first few weeks it was fine.

'But I can only relax for so long and am not one for hobbies. I realised I had to go back to work - it keeps me feeling alive.'

Next month he picks up the keys to his town house in upmarket Marylebone, central London, with second wife Mandy, 57.

He says: 'She is looking forward to being closer to the cultural attractions of London - the theatre and opera. But for me it is all about the new job and I cannot wait.'

Hill's new venture will charge property buyers £650 for a legal service that also enables them to keep tabs on how their conveyancing is progressing. He hopes it will banish the nightmare experience suffered by many homebuyers and believes he can grab 10% of the market within five years by doing a better and faster job.

'Moving house myself right now, I understand how frustrating it is never knowing what is going on and how solicitors bamboozle you with jargon,' he says.

'My wife keeps asking me, "Have you heard from the lawyer?" We can't stop the feudal process, but the website puts an end to people being left in the dark.'

Hill admits he is no technical wizard and was sceptical when he set up Rightmove as Countrywide chief executive in 2000.

'It was astonishing,' he says. 'My initial thought was no one would go on the internet to buy a house - but what did I know? I felt it was worth the £2m gamble. We immediately got dozens of online hits at 2.30am - the middle of the night! I knew then we had something special.'

Hill was chairman of Rightmove until 2005.

'The only thing wrong is the brand did not go far enough,' he says. 'I think more could have been made of it. Perhaps we could have set up a dating service Rightdating - maybe a funeral service Rightfunerals. I suggested the ideas, but no one took me seriously.'

The In-Deed website has no links with Rightmove or Countrywide, but has support from venture capital group 3i, which backed him in his failed £971 million management buyout of Countrywide in early 2007. He stepped down after that and became non-executive chairman until 2009.

A friend from the past will be a non-executive director of the In-Deed board, former Nationwide chief executive Philip Williamson. Hill purchased the building society's estate agency arm for a nominal £1 in 1994. Williamson did the negotiating on behalf of Nationwide.

'Nationwide was losing £20 million a year from the estate agent business at the time,' says Hill. 'It paid us £15m and gave us a car fleet as a sweetener for the deal.

'I promised to give it £1bn of mortgage business a year in return. It was a risky strategy, but Philip trusted me and, despite what others at Nationwide feared, I was a man of my word and the deal brought the mutual rich rewards.'

Hill was one of the first innovators of cross-selling - a key ingredient to Countrywide's success. About half the people buying a house through Countrywide took out a mortgage or life cover when Hill was in charge.

'The one-stop-shop idea is fantastic if done well,' he says. 'We only sold products that were convenient and suitable for the customer - they never got pushed into pet insurance. There was not one case of mis-selling I can recall.'

Barnsley-born Hill has lost the broad accent, but he has kept his Yorkshire grit. 'I may run businesses aggressively, but I am not an aggressive person,' he says.

His father, Jack, was a colliery manager and fought in the Far East in the Second World War. Hill wanted to be an officer in the Army when he left Barnsley Grammar School.

'But I failed to get into training school for Sandhurst,' he says. 'Everyone around me was classically educated. It seemed wrong I might have been rejected because I didn't have the right breeding.'

Hill claims not to carry a chip on his shoulder and is proud that eldest son, Jonathan, who went to private school, is a Royal Marines major serving in Afghanistan. He has five sons, aged between 18 and 37, two by his first wife.

With no career guidance Hill answered an ad for a £2-a-week trainee surveyor.

'It was lots of fun being outdoors counting sheep in the Pennines and holding tape measures,' he says. Seeking more adventure - and money - he moved to Whitby, North Yorkshire, and started buying Victorian terraced houses, doing them up and selling them for £500 profit a time.

By the age of 20 he had made £200,000 and moved to East Anglia to become a partner in an estate agency. The business was later snapped up by Mann & Co and then banking giant Hambros.

Hill was appointed joint managing director of Hambro Countrywide in 1989 just as the housing boom was coming to the end. He became sole managing director and chief executive when Countrywide split from Hambro in 1998.

Along the way the firm gobbled up chains including the estate agency arms of Bradford & Bingley and Friends Provident.

'In the early years it was survival of the fittest,' he says. 'But no matter how many times you shake the milk, the cream always rises to the top and the markets get rid of the rubbish.'

Hill accepts there may be a fundamental shift in the market with firsttime buyers not getting on to the property ladder until their mid-30s, rental property becoming a permanent choice for some and the growing popularity of home-buyer rental schemes.

'The housing market is in the worst doldrums since the Second World War, but it will hopefully pick up over the next couple of years,' he says.

And estate agents?

'There is a common misconception that we are all rogues and vagabonds - driving around in Porsches with mobile phones attached to our ear,' he says. 'But the days of flash cars and white socks are long gone, if they ever existed at all.'

Hill is not a typical estate agent. His demeanour is as modest as his attire, red check shirt aside.

'I do not count myself a great success - it is not as if I save lives,' he says.

And the car? 'OK, I do have an eight-year-old Porsche 911, but I plan to give it to one of my sons,' he says. 'Mostly, I drive around in a Vauxhall Astra.'