{"id":33458,"date":"2026-09-03T14:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T13:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/?p=33458"},"modified":"2026-09-03T14:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T13:01:07","slug":"sourced-franchisee-grows-lettings-portfolio-from-33-to-408-properties-in-just-over-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/sourced-franchisee-grows-lettings-portfolio-from-33-to-408-properties-in-just-over-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Sourced Franchisee grows lettings portfolio from 33 to 408 properties in just over two years"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><h3>A franchisee who launched her own lettings franchise business with Sourced Living in spring 2024 has grown from 33 to 408 managed properties after completing the acquisition of an established four-branch estate agency.<\/h3>\n<p>Sara Watkins-Schmidt, a Sourced Living franchisee, had a background in sales and marketing before entering the property industry.<\/p>\n<p>Starting without an existing lettings portfolio, she built her first 33 managed properties organically before looking to acquisition as a way to accelerate the growth of her business.<\/p>\n<p>Just over two years after launching, with the support of Sourced, Sara has now acquired Complete Estate Agency in Devon, adding\u00a0<strong>375 managed properties, four established branches and 23 employees to her operation.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sara said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGetting to 33 managed properties taught me a huge amount and gave me the confidence that I could build a successful lettings business, but I always had bigger ambitions for where I wanted to take it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAcquiring Complete has completely changed the scale of the business. I&#8217;ve gone from 33 properties to 408 and now have four established branches and an incredibly experienced team around me.\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Complete operates branches in Bovey Tracey, Newton Abbot, Teignmouth and Exeter (Cranbrook).<\/p>\n<p>All four locations will remain open and continue trading under the Complete Estate Agency brand, with its existing 23-strong team remaining in place.<\/p>\n<p>The acquisition was completed with the backing of Sourced Living and forms part of the franchise&#8217;s approach of enabling Partners to combine organic portfolio building with the acquisition of established agencies and portfolios.<\/p>\n<p>Stephen Moss, Founder and CEO of Sourced Property Group, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSara&#8217;s journey demonstrates why we don&#8217;t believe franchise growth has to mean adding one customer at a time for years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe came into the industry without an established lettings portfolio, built the foundations herself and proved she could grow organically.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe next question was how we could help her take that business to a completely different level.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe right acquisition can change the trajectory of a business. Sara has gone from 33 to more than 400 managed properties, but she&#8217;s also gained an experienced team, four established branches, infrastructure and a recognised local brand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor us, that&#8217;s an exciting evolution of what a franchise can offer ambitious business owners.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sara\u2019s focus will now be on working with Complete&#8217;s existing team to increase the agency&#8217;s reach across Devon and build on its achievements in both residential sales and lettings. Sara and the team share a strong commitment to the residential sales side of the business, which will remain central to Complete&#8217;s future growth.<\/p>\n<p>Sara added:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis feels much more like the beginning of the next stage than the end goal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve now got a very special team, the infrastructure and the platform to build something much bigger. Residential sales is an important part of Complete and something the team and I are passionate about, so the ambition is to grow both sides of the business together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A franchisee who launched her own lettings franchise business with Sourced Living in spring 2024 has grown from 33 to 408 managed properties after completing the acquisition of an established four-branch estate agency. Sara Watkins-Schmidt, a Sourced Living franchisee, had a background in sales and marketing before entering the property industry. Starting without an existing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[929,1577],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-investment-franchises","category-sourced-living"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Sara-WS-Complete-Agency-1-scaled.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33458"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33463,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33458\/revisions\/33463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.franchiselocal.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}