Houso, a revolutionary new property app which allows vendors to gain pre-market exposure for their home in order to gauge interest before committing to selling for free, has hired property PR agency Bien Media to raise its profile in the press. Ben Johnston, founder and director of Houso, says: ‘Anyone who’s experienced the torturous home-buying and selling process knows the current system is simply not working. With so little stock for sale, and far more demand than supply, vendors won’t seriously entertain an offer from a buyer unless the buyer’s own home is under offer. But if you haven’t found a dream home to buy, why risk marketing your own property? If you receive an offer, the pressure is on to find your next home and you may end up buying something which is ok, not brilliant, just for the sake of it. This is where wrong decisions are made.’ Houso aims to solve these problems and remove uncertainty by enabling vendors to list their home, for free, in order to gauge buyer interest. This pre-market exposure enables vendors to build a waiting list of people keen to buy their home. It gives the vendor the confidence to go house-hunting themselves, safe in the knowledge that there are interested parties in their own home. Then when the vendor finds their perfect next home, the transactional time could be greatly reduced. Melanie Bien, director of property PR agency Bien Media, says : ‘We are delighted to be working with Houso to raise awareness of what they are trying to do, which is to resolve what are real issues with the whole process of buying and selling property. Anyone who has sold a home has been there – trying to find an interested and qualified buyer at the same time as finding the dream home that you wish to buy, and having an offer accepted on it. That’s a lot of pressure on things happening at the right time and in this market with such low levels of stock available, it’s increasingly difficult to achieve.’ www.houso.co.uk

It is eight years since property and mortgage PR consultancy Bien Media opened its doors to our first clients and incredibly, one of those early joiners - mortgage broker SPF Private Clients - is still with us today. Another mortgage broker, Anderson Harris, was also a client from day one until this month. Within our first six months, removals firms Anthony Ward Thomas and Aussie Man & Van signed up - and have stuck with us ever since. Some clients have come and gone but thankfully most have stayed - buying agency Prime Purchase (celebrating six years as a client next month); estate agent Jeremy Leaf (a client for four years). There is a lot to be said for longevity and working with a brand over time. As a PR, you really get to know and understand the people within a company and effectively become a member of the team (this, to me, is PR working at its best). If you are working with a start-up, you have the honour of seeing them develop and grow over time, and it's rewarding when some of your hard work has helped them achieve that growth. I set up Bien Media when my middle child was three months old. I had been a financial journalist for a decade, working on publications including The European , The Times , various FT publications, and as personal finance editor on the Independent on Sunday . I then worked in-house as head of media relations at Savills Private Finance, as it was then known, for five years before joining another mortgage broker to do their PR. Savills Private Finance was hiring a freelance PR consultant and my old boss asked whether I could do it. 'Yes', was the resounding answer, even though I'd not long had a baby and already had a two-year-old. Perhaps it was lucky that at that point I didn't know there would be a third child along in another two years' time. But the appeal of setting up Bien Media meant I could branch out on my own, offering a specialist PR function to property and mortgage companies. I believe that part of Bien Media's appeal to long-standing clients, in particular, is that they get dedicated service from an ex-financial journalist who knows the type of thing journalists are looking for. I am not afraid to say when I believe a press release on a particular subject would not be of interest to a journalist. I don't take on every client who comes through our doors looking for PR either. And so on we go. New client Houso , the off-market property app which allows vendors to sell their homes for free, launched with Bien Media this month and I am excited about two new clients joining next month. Bien Media can only ever be a certain size because my clients desire, and deserve, a dedicated service and I am keen to avoid conflicts of interest. But there is more than enough scope for a varied array of clients to promote. Here's to the next eight years - and beyond.... Bien Media client list: Mortgage broker SPF Private Clients Removals firms Anthony Ward Thomas and Aussie Man & Van Buying agency Prime Purchase Estate agency Jeremy Leaf & Co Property lender MT Finance Knightsbridge estate agency Nicolas Van Patrick Off-market property app Houso

Bien Media client Jeremy Leaf has enjoyed nearly 5,500 press mentions over the past four years the companies have worked together