LOCAL estate agents have excelled in the Experts in Property Awards.

Okehampton’s long-established Stevens’ Estate Agents has been crowned community champion and Tavistock and Launceston based View Property won two accolades — gold for best use of social media and a highly commended in the community category.

With the ceremony held via Zoom, the Experts in Property Awards 2021 was well-attended by its member estate agencies across Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol and celebrated what was most important in agency over the last couple of years, majoring on training, online marketing and community involvement.

There were seven awards categories and Stevens’ was selected over more than 60 other estate agency offices to win the gold award for its support of the local community.

Steve Moir, chairman of the Experts in Property, said: ‘The last 18 months or so have reinforced to us all the values of community, people and trust and our most successful agencies are those which play an integral part within their local communities, engaging with neighbours, community groups and others – not necessarily as estate agents, but as people. Stevens’ is, and always has been one of those agencies.’

Stevens’ is a huge supporter of rugby in the area, sponsoring North Tawton Rugby Club and supplying the kit for the adults and juniors teams as well as Okehampton RFC Under 12s.

The agency sponsors a local walking football club as well as two football teams and projects including the towns lights and various local community events.

The team at Stevens were also praised for the volunteering they do as individuals.

Established in 1977, Stevens’ has been selling and letting residential and commercial property in the area for the last 45 years and over that time, has earned an excellent reputation, scoring a very respectable 4.6/5 on Facebook reviews and 5/5 on allAgents, the UK’s largest customer reviews website for the property industry.

The agency is a member of the Experts in Property, the network of independent estate agents across the south west, all working together to sell more homes for clients.

Meanwhile View Property was praised for its ‘fun, engaging and informative’ social media platforms.

‘They use multiple channels and tailor the content for each audience well. They promote new properties listing key features and link to their website in posts,’ said Lauren Hagan, owner of Lemon Tree Ditigal Marketing who was on the judging panel.

‘I particularly enjoy the personal touches in their feeds, including pictures of their teams, views around the area, and funny photos of office life.’

The team at View was also highly commended in the community category. The agency sponsors the Kelliwick U8s and Horrabridge U11s, Tavistock and Launceston based seconds football teams as well as the Tavistock Specials FC, in the Devon Ability Counts League.

During December, Santa and one of his reindeer joined the team to spread some Christmas cheer around the towns and the agency loves attending and being involved in local events.

Established in 2016 by business partners, Martin Deacon and Will Inman, View Property took the local homes market by storm and soon earned its position as leader in the market with a superb reputation for offering the very best in service and value for money.

The latest honours follow on the back of the firm’s success at The British Property Awards 2021. At a local level, each branch was crowned best in their respective towns with the gold awards for Tavistock and Launceston.

On a regional level, the Tavistock branch was awarded with bronze winner estate agent south west (Devon) and the Launceston office took the 2021 gold winner for estate agent in south west (Cornwall)