Four partners. One office.
Same High Street, three generations.
Independent estate agents in Ely. We sell homes within fifteen miles of where we are standing, and we have done so from this office since 1978.
A note on the firm.
Hayward & Sons was founded in 1978 by John Hayward, on the principle that an estate agent should know the streets it sells on and the people who live there. The first office was a single room above what was then a chemist on the High Street in Ely. Three generations later we are still on the same High Street, now in a corner unit twenty yards from the original.
We are not interested in scale. We have been asked to open in Cambridge several times and have declined. We sell, on average, just over a hundred and twenty homes a year across Ely and the eight villages around it, which is roughly the number that four of us can properly attend to.
If the firm has a thesis, this is it: a small agency that knows a small area very well will do a better job than a large agency that knows nowhere in particular. The clients we have sold the same family three homes for over the decades tend to agree.
Who you'll be dealing with.
No call centre. No junior pass-throughs. The person who values your home is the person who shows it. Calls to the office go to whichever of us is in.
-
Senior Partner · Joined 1998
Marcus Hayward
Marcus is the third generation of the family in the firm and the partner most likely to be answering the phone after six. He grew up on Lynn Road, went away for university, came back, and never left again. Handles instructions across Ely and the south of the patch.
-
Partner, Sales · Joined 2007
Helena Carr
Helena joined from a national chain in Cambridge, having spent six years quietly losing patience with the way they treated sellers. She runs the sales floor, knows every road in the villages, and is the partner most likely to chase a solicitor before lunch.
-
Associate, Valuations · Joined 2014
Tom Reeve
Tom came from a surveying background and now handles the formal valuation work. He is the quietest of the four in a meeting, the one buyers tend to send their solicitor to, and the partner most likely to be on a bike between viewings.
-
Office Manager · Joined 2011
Sarah Whitfield
Sarah runs the office and the post-offer process: the side of the business that decides whether a sale takes nine weeks or four months. If you have spoken to anyone at Hayward & Sons in the last decade, you have probably spoken to Sarah first.
Four small commitments.
- 01
We work the postcodes we walk.
We turn down instructions outside East Cambridgeshire, because covering a small patch properly is the whole proposition.
- 02
Every partner takes the calls.
No call centres, no junior pass-throughs. The person who valued your home is the person who shows it.
- 03
A hundred or so a year, by design.
Roughly a hundred and twenty homes sold annually, the number four of us can do properly. We have repeatedly chosen not to grow past it.
- 04
Relationships over portals.
We list on Rightmove and OnTheMarket because everyone does, but the houses we have sold the same family three times over the decades did not come from a click-through.
Hayward & Sons
18 High StreetEly
Cambridgeshire CB7 4LJ
- Mon to Fri
- 9 to 5.30
- Saturday
- 9 to 4
- Sunday
- Closed
Come and have a chat.
Most valuations are an hour at the kitchen table. We'll tell you what we think it's worth, what we'd do to sell it, and whether we think we're the right agent for the job. No pressure to instruct.