Ten years of AZ Real Estate

A decade ago, in 2012, Alisa Zotimova registered A Z Real Estate Limited, and this year we are celebrating our anniversary! In October we invited our clients, partners, colleagues and friends to share our celebration in one of the most prestigious private clubs in London – Savile club.

Over the years, Alisa’s brainchild has grown into a strong, independent full-stack real estate agency with over £170 million in transactions and a team of nine people. About 30 people have worked in our company including our current team. We’ve moved six offices and successfully passed two tax audits, closed hundreds of residential and commercial property deals ranging from £100k to £25m. We’ve bought houses for £10+m, and found space for restaurants and salons. During the pandemic, we sold the house entirely remotely, having never been there (but this is rather an exception and not the practice of our work). And even managed and facilitated the purchase of a student accommodation block! There were large deals and not that large.

From seemingly small requests, for example, finding a room for a student on a university campus, long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with clients grew. Specifically, for those clients who came to us looking for a room, we eventually helped to buy an apartment, let it out, manage it, and eventually sell it. And now we are looking for a new one for them.

Today we work with investors from around the world and find new homes for families moving to the UK for study or work. We source offices and retail spaces for rent and purchase – for companies entering the UK market or already expanding their business.

Over the 10 years of the company’s existence, we have experienced many events that happened and influenced the market: Brexit (first the vote in 2016, then three years of uncertainty and Brexit itself in 2019), two Stamp Duty increases in 2014 and 2016, several series of sanctions, the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine. Despite this, the UK real estate market has shown steady growth, and average house prices in London have risen by 78% since 2012. Those clients who bought with us ten years ago and still hold their assets have received an impressive increase in their value by today. In our previous article, we write about what has happened to the real estate market in the UK and London over the years.