YP business profile: Mark Mitchell, Avant Homes Yorkshire

Avant Homes Yorkshire boss Mark Mitchell has seen both a recession and restructure under his leadership. Mark Casci reports.
Mark Mitchell Avant HomesMark Mitchell Avant Homes
Mark Mitchell Avant Homes

However, for Avant Homes Yorkshire’s managing director Mark Mitchell, he was in position to say this by his early 30s.

Mr Mitchell was appointed to his current role at the age of 27, having risen rapidly in his sector through a number of roles. His appointment came just before the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s which saw the construction industry suffer and unprecedented slowdown in activity.

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The colossal pressures the downturn brought with it and the relatively tender age would have sunk most people but for Mr Mitchell it proved his making.

Not only did the firm successfully weather the storm, it repositioned itself as a business, migrating the target audience and style of home it built into the upper echelons of the market, a process he was integral in executing.

Today the firm is a success story with Mr Mitchell’s Yorkshire domain at the heart of it. Avant operates across four divisions and the Yorkshire wing has had a great 2016, having sold 77 homes in the last seven weeks alone, and targeting 550 in total for next year.

And, as he approaches his tenth year in the helm, the Sheffield businessman views his baptism of fire at the top of the firm as a blessing.

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“I have seen a recession, a downturn and the recovery. You can’t take away the experience. I would much rather have done it than not in hindsight. I have seen it all and where it can go wrong, and learnt from it.”

Always good with numbers, Mr Mitchell was contemplating a degree in architecture upon finishing his A-levels.

However upon reflection the young man decided that a seven year career course was not for him and decided to jump straight into work, taking a role as a trainee quantity surveyor with Henry Boot Homes, before moving to Ben Bailey Homes.

It was here his meteoric rise began, becoming assistant quantity surveyor before ending up in the commercial director’s seat by 2006.

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At this point the business was sold to what is now Avant Homes Group.

The sale saw the departure of much of the board and he found himself appointed managing director.

He was charged not only with proving himself as a top manager with a national company but also assembling a new managerial team which he did from promoting existing staff and an external talent search.

Not long after accomplishing this, the downturn hit.

“Perfect timing,” he jokes. “But it was a good learning curve, running a business in the most challenging times in recent years.

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“If I did it now, I would be far more apprehensive but when you are that young you don’t think about, you just crack on and do it.

“I got the exposure, earning respect at a young age, ordinarily you are 40-45 not 27 when you get made an MD.

“Obviously you can’t do that on your own, I have a great team and great workforce.”

As the recovery took hold Avant began a massive refocusing of its operations, moving towards the higher end of the market and expanding its geographical reach outside of Ben Bailey’s traditional patch of South Yorkshire.

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Their headquarters was relocated close to Wakefield, just off of the M1 motorway, placing the central operation within an hour’s drive of most of their active sites.

It was, Mr Mitchell says “a fundamental move in business”.

“The key differentiation for us is specification.

“We completely changed the way we think. We wanted to be different, not different for difference sake. From a blank sheet of paper we redesigned our entire range. All open plan living, the Grand Design theme which is so popular.

“We moved forward sites in South Yorkshire whilst identifying new sites in West and North Yorkshire.”

The rollout was gradual and controlled. By 2013 two thirds of the homes it built were to the new specification. Now all outlets are that level. It has meant the average cost of an Avant home in Yorkshire has risen from £116,000 in 2010 to £265,000 this year.

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“Across Yorkshire our key target cities have always been Leeds, York and Sheffield. There is no shortage of opportunities to get the land we need to build and sell our products. The macro economics in terms of supply and demand show that demand is outweighing supply for homes. Mortgage lending rates are at an all time low so it is good time to invest in and grow the business in Yorkshire.”

Mr Mitchell’s commitment to setting his firm’s homes apart sees his team constantly upgrading their offering, visiting European interior design shows to see what the latest trends are yielding and seeking exclusivity on everything from tiles to kitchens.

“We are very passionate about what we build and what specification we use. We want to buy the homes we build.”

The 36-year-old is very clear about what drives him as a business leader, and it is a simple pure motivation.

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“For me it has always been looking at a piece of land and taking it through process to seeing people living there. Creating communities that people have invested in and made their home. Every week we go on site visits and keep involved on that basis. That way you can touch and feel it on the shop floor and see what is going on.”

Mr Mitchell said Brexit has yet to touch the business and is ebullient about the region’s prospects.

“We are excited to be invested in Yorkshire. It is a positive time.”

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