“My dad’s quite a hard taskmaster”: Mark Manning on his property award win and why joining the family business wasn't the easy option
Mark Manning was 17 when his father handed him the keys to a blue Rover and sent him out to show prospective buyers around houses in Leeds.
He loved it. Driving between viewings at weekends, the teenager could hardly have imagined that almost three decades later he would be collecting one of the property industry's leading regional accolades, having helped turn a family estate agency into a group employing around 450 people.
The managing director of Northern Estate Agency Group (NEAG), whose brands include Manning Stainton, Ryder & Dutton and Mortimers, was named Property Personality at The Yorkshires. Residential Real Estate Awards 2026.
"I feel very privileged,” he told Property Post. “But people like me don't get awards without all the people who do all the work behind the scenes to make the business successful.”
Organised by Yorkshire Children's Charity, the awards ceremony at Rudding Park Hotel in Harrogate recognised achievements across the region's property sector over the past 12 months, while raising funds to support children disadvantaged by ill health, disability or financial circumstances.
The other winners included Rebecca Blyth of Simon Blyth Estate Agents, who received the Rising Star award, while Attraction in Hull won Best Large Development and Waverley Green in Rotherham took Best Small Development.
Andrew Moseley Associates won Best Residential Consultancy Practice, Beal Homes was named Best Residential Developer and Zenko City Living won Best Small Agent. Monroe Estate Agents took Best Agency Team, Lowfield Green in York received the Placemaker Award, and The Store House in Leeds won Excellence in Design.
Mark, 44, admitted to feeling slightly young for accolade, often associated with long-established names. Yet his career has taken him from the front desk of a single branch to leading an estate agency group spanning Yorkshire and Lancashire.
After studying computing and business at university, he planned to pursue a career in IT in London, but advice from a cousin prompted him to reconsider joining the family business founded by his father, Russell Manning MBE. “I'd assumed it was the easy option,” he said. “My dad's quite a hard taskmaster...but in a good way.”
He joined Manning Stainton as a sales negotiator in Wakefield in 2005, aged 23, and worked his way up to managing director in 2017. His approach centres on understanding clients. “If you get onto their wavelength, that's when you tend to have the most success,” he said.
The business has undergone significant change during Mark’s tenure. While his father envisaged a wider Northern Estate Agencies operation, Mark pushed to realise that ambition, with the 2021 acquisitions of Ryder & Dutton and Mortimers bringing together businesses across the Pennines.
“It was an incredible part of our journey buying those two businesses and creating this Northern Estate Agencies Group,” he said.
LRG acquired the group in 2025, providing backing for further expansion while Mark remained managing director. More fearless than his father, whom he credits as an excellent businessman and grounding influence, Mark said he sees the sale as the start of another phase, with plans for further acquisitions and to extend the group’s culture to other businesses.
That ambition comes against a backdrop of mounting challenges for the industry. Mark said the process of buying and selling a home has become more complicated, despite advances in technology that should have made it simpler.
"The way deals transact and the regulatory and compliance frameworks that we now work with are so rigorous but it hasn't been matched by the progression in techbnology and by legislation, which ultimately is what holds us back,” he said.
Artificial intelligence could help, particularly by handling some of the work involved in preparing a property for sale and reducing the administrative burden of transactions. But Mark believes the industry has yet to make full use of the technology available.
He argued that the growing complexity of transactions makes professional advice more important. The same applies to lettings, where landlords face increasingly demanding regulatory requirements.
Supporting community organisations and people facing disadvantage remains an important part of the group, he said, reflecting values passed down through his father and grandfather.
The awards evening was a further opportunity to support the community. The event helped raise funds for Yorkshire Children's Charity's Warm, Dry and Ready to Learn campaign, which aims to provide essential winter items, including coats, shoes, bedding and pyjamas, to more than 3,000 children living in destitution.
The Yorkshire Post was one of the sponsors of the awards. Other sponsors included: Gowling WLG, Edward + Riley Architects, Hampshire Trust Bank, AV Matrix, Walker Morris, Strata Homes, DS Emotion, Leeds College of Building, The English Marquee Company and Zenko City Living.
Meanwhile, while Mark’s award recognises what he has achieved so far, he has no intention of retiring on the back of it. His focus remains on growing the business and developing the group, building on the foundations of a career that began showing buyers around houses in a borrowed Rover.