Inside the supercharged world of British real estate agent Gary Hersham

To get to know Britain’s most successful real estate agent, Gary Hersham, all you really need is to read the quotes by him and others.

“As I’ve said to his face many times, he’s a lunatic, but he’s a phenomenal operator” Anthony Payne, founder of LonRed and who used to work with Hersham, told The Guardian in a feature about Hersham. 

“Some hate me, some think I’m not straightforward. Abrasive. Difficult to work with,” Hersham, co-founder of Beauchamp Estates, told the outlet.

“[L]ock them in the car and don’t let them out until they’ve bought something,” one agent said of Hersham’s selling style, according to the outlet. 

“Shout at someone and play hard until you get the price you want,” another agent said of Hersham, the Guardian said.

“He knows everyone,” another former co-worker told the Guardian.

“You’re not to go to any other agent!” Hersham pleaded with a client. “You’re not to go to any other agent! If I find you going to another agent, I’ll be really upset with you!” 

His hard-charging, relentless style, which he’s developed over the course of four-plus decades, has led to massive success, including what he says is moving 100 units per year of Britain’s most expensive properties.

He’s sold homes for tens of millions of pounds, including the most expensive home ever sold in Britain: (£50m), 2-8a Rutland Gate in Knightsbridge, for £215 million in 2020.

It hasn’t hurt that wealth has grown so much globally, and in Britain, that it has warped the housing market to the point where the luxe homes Hersham and his colleagues sell often go unoccupied for large swaths of the year.

“It’s not for me to be bothered about somebody keeping their house empty,” Hersham told the Guardian. “It’s not my position to be worried about things like that. The truth is, lots of people don’t occupy expensive houses all year round. Most have a second or third or fourth home. You can’t expect them, if they have that many homes, to occupy them all year round.”

His firm, Beauchamp Estates, has about 80 agents worldwide and fights over the highly lucrative, hypercompetitive luxury real estate market where commissions can run anywhere from 2 to 6 percent. 

“There are a lot of posh agencies fighting over a very small number of sales,” Nigel Lewis of The Negotiator told The Guardian.

At the forefront of that market is Hersham, whose wheeling and dealing means his phone is constantly pinging nonstop with texts and calls. 

“Life is always to do with kindness,” Hersham told The Guardian. “It doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate hard, but you’ve got to negotiate fairly, that’s my motto.”

— Ted Glanzer