Real estate and lettings franchise House-Hut has won Gold for the South West Region and The Grand Prix Silver Award for the UK at the Estate and Letting Agent Awards 2010. For the third year in a row, House-Hut was rewarded for its superb customer service – this time landing one of the national Grand Prix awards for the whole of the UK.

Phil Spencer, presenter of Channel 4’s Location, Location, presented the award at a ceremony in London attended by 450 estate and letting agents. The results were calculated from research carried out among customers and more than 19,000 votes were submitted, making the awards an invaluable industry resource.

Maria Collier, managing director of House-Hut, said: “Winning these awards justifies our claim that we offer the best service in the UK and at half the price of most other estate agents. What makes these awards so special is that they are voted for by our customers – surely our greatest critics and today they have confirmed we are the best in the UK.”

House-Hut’s Sales Director Paul Collier added: “Having won the Silver for the South West in 2008 and 2009, we wanted to go one better this year. Winning Gold for the South West proves we are the best estate agent in the region and to win the Grand Prix silver overall was a real tribute to our hard working staff.”

Gary Rigby, of FDS Southern, said: “It has been a pleasure to work with both Paul and Maria Collier of House-Hut and assist them in developing this exciting franchise opportunity. They have a proven formula for success and are now able to offer this award winning franchise to like minded business builders across the UK, there has been a phenomenal interest in the franchise from day one.”

House-Hut, which has been operating for five years in the Bath area, are looking to expand their award winning services across the UK so that others may benefit from their award winning service and have recently opened their first franchise in Eastbourne with more branches planned over the coming months.

Mr Collier added: “We regularly get requests to sell properties in other parts of the country and by expanding through our franchises we hope to go some way towards meeting this demand”.

With forty two DVD kiosks now in operation, The Movie Booth is gaining a foothold in the UK and Irish DVD rental market.  The company installs their DVD machines into retail stores and base their business model on offering price and convenience to consumers.

Individual kiosks are managed by a number of operators across the UK and Ireland.  The operators have full control over the kiosk and make all decisions on pricing, stock and marketing.  The easy to manage business opportunity has proved attractive to investors, and The Movie Booth is looking to grow their base of operators nationwide.

The central success of The Movie Booth concept has been the response to the concept from customers who are tired of waiting for their movies to arrive in the post or can’t afford to spend £4 per night on renting a movie from a traditional store.  Offering the ultimate in convenience – customers can get everything they need for a night in from one place – has been a huge incentive to busy consumers of the 21st Century.

The company has had some extremely positive feedback from users in recent weeks:

“The movie booth is brilliant and I no longer rent from Blockbuster. It would be great to see them in other shops. I think it is a fab idea, and lots of my friends have started using it too!”
Katherine Thorne, Portsmouth

The movie booth is located in the Co-Op across the road. I absolutely love it. It is cheap, convenient….. And so far not many people are aware of it, so most of the movies are available. I love the fact that the movies are constantly updated, as I m a cinema addict!!!  It is very easy to use, and very quick. Emails sending updates are great, it just remind me it is around the corner…so all good!
Nathalie Vieira, Southsea

For me to get to my local Movie Booth takes about 10 minutes value for money is excellent when you compare it to a lot of other outlets such as Blockbusters I have had no problem with any of the films all have worked perfectly, some of the weekend deals you do are great and I always take advantage of them I have recommended this service to my mates and most all ready use it.
Keven Gevouax-Ross, Edinburgh

As the number of traditional DVD rental stores decreases, the demand for local cost effective services has increased and The Movie Booth are poised to take advantage of this gap in the market with their revolutionary DVD kiosks.

For further information on the Movie Booth franchise click here.