Your Move

Five Fibre score: 76/100. Assess 15.5/20, Build 16/20, Launch 18.5/20, Grow 5.5/20, Amplify 20/20.

Assessment band: Growth Ready.

Your Move is an estate and lettings agency franchise combining independent local businesses with corporate support and a national customer platform. The important commercial connection is between attracting a suitable local instruction, delivering the property service and retaining an appropriate return after branch costs. The strongest public evidence concerns that customer journey and the people supporting local operators. Ownership recruitment measurements and representative owner economics are less publicly visible than the scale of the brand.

The network remains active through its customer site, dedicated franchise pages and LSL’s current reporting. The recorded /franchise path on the customer domain did not provide the substantive opportunity during this review; the dedicated your-movefranchising.co.uk site provides the current public journey. The discrepancy is flagged without changing the opportunity field outside the authorised scope. The primary privacy notice also explains that independent franchise branches collect customer information in their own capacity, reinforcing the distinction between the brand organisation and local businesses.

The history should separate the earlier agency operation, the Your Move brand and later ownership changes. Historical trade reporting describes a rebrand in 1999 after earlier trading under a different corporate identity. LSL’s 2023 announcement concerns conversion of its remaining owned branch estate into a fully franchised model, while franchised branches already existed. These are different milestones. The 2023 restructure is not automatically the first franchise year, and a legal incorporation date would not by itself establish the start of the current brand proposition.

Public scale descriptions vary in timing and unit. The BFA profile describes more than one hundred and sixty-five independently owned branches. The recruitment site refers to more than thirty owners in one place and at least thirty-five in another, while older group descriptions use more than sixty partners across several brands. The September 2026 LSL announcement gives seventy franchisees and more than three hundred and twenty locations for the whole division. Those figures cannot establish a fresh Your Move-only count. A branch, territory and legal owner may each represent a different unit.

The franchise privacy directory provides a useful cross-check because it maps named businesses to multiple office locations. It also illustrates why owner case studies need dates. Marc McLaughlin’s story describes entry in 2007 and a later lettings acquisition, while the current directory uses a somewhat different office pairing for that business. That does not establish a failure or closure. It shows that historic stories and current operating records should be reconciled rather than presenting all place names as simultaneously current. The existing factual columns have been preserved.

Financial evidence must remain similarly bounded. LSL’s 2025 results and September 2026 interim announcement report profitable estate agency franchising activity, but across multiple brands and support services. The reported margins concern the franchisor division, not what a Your Move owner retains from local sales and lettings. Owner testimony describes practical value and additional income opportunities without supplying a representative achieved net-profit cohort. For a new entrant, the decision-useful comparison is a realistic branch result after people, premises, support charges and financing, with maturity and owner labour defined.

The BFA profile gives a £20,000 startup indication, while the primary FAQs explain an initial territory setup charge and ongoing royalties with amounts discussed individually. Converting an agency, acquiring a resale and opening a new branch require different funding. Older online articles publish different fees and total investment examples, but their age prevents treating them as the current contract. Applicants need a route-specific full funding schedule, including working capital. Access to several revenue streams does not remove the practical need to fund the period before those streams produce reliable cash.

Build benefits from a specifically identified support structure. The current team page names partnerships and franchise directors, a business development director and a project manager responsible for openings and integration. The BFA training description identifies onboarding and ongoing learning. This is substantive evidence beyond a founder promising personal help. The remaining public gaps concern the complete operating playbook and a dependable central route to all current resources. An academy and CRM integration provide different functions; together they do not automatically verify that every required document and commercial tool is accessible from one place.

Founder independence is appropriately stronger than for a new founder-led concept. Your Move operates through established corporate and local management rather than requiring an original individual founder in daily operations. That supports full credit for the thirty-day founder criterion. It should not be mistaken for evidence that an individual branch can run without its local owner or management team. Similarly, a dedicated implementation function helps owners launch without constant founder answers, but local recruitment and operating responsibilities still need clear ownership.

Launch has a clear mutual assessment route. The published sequence includes discussion, discovery and business and operations planning before formal arrangements. The form asks about proposed area, timescale and relevant experience. The FAQs also make a practical distinction for entrants without sector knowledge by recommending experienced staffing and training. No enquiry was submitted and no private pack reviewed. The unresolved campaign question is how this journey is supplied with suitable prospects in the locations where the business can support viable expansion.

Grow receives specific credit for named partnerships leadership. That is stronger evidence of recruitment beyond founders than the mere existence of a national brand. Monthly suitable applicant demand, source quality and agreement conversion remain publicly unverified. The hot-locations page refers to many opportunities and potential resales but does not set out a prioritised named release list. A sales lead generated by the customer site is also not a franchise applicant. The two funnels have different suitability criteria, decisions and commercial outcomes and should remain separately measured.

Amplify is strongly evidenced through branch hubs, regular customer communications and valuation tracking. The primary Why Your Move page describes Nurture as a branch-tailored customer experience connected with pre- and post-valuation activity. Its claim about online-originated instructions concerns customer acquisition, not recruitment. The useful improvement is to make definitions, periods and cost contribution explicit when discussing such results. Public search, paid activity and ongoing communications demonstrate acquisition beyond personal networks, while actual retained value still depends on instruction quality, conversion, completion and reliable service delivery.

The practical priority is to connect an established platform with clearer current evidence at the points where ownership decisions depend on it. A reconciled brand-only roster would improve scale reporting, route-specific owner economics would strengthen applicant decisions and a measured recruitment pipeline would help direct support capacity. There is no reason to replace functioning local digital assets merely because the public evidence is incomplete elsewhere. The task is to understand what they contribute and ensure network expansion remains commercially supportable.

• Grow: Verify monthly suitable applicants, ownership source quality and agreement conversion, connected to a prioritised current territory release plan.

• Assess: Reconcile the brand-only footprint and complete route-specific funding with defined achieved owner economics.

• Build: Verify the complete operating playbook and one dependable access route across learning, systems, templates and commercial support.

• Launch: Connect the existing mutual discovery process to a dated ownership campaign plan and the correct current opportunity URL.

• Amplify: Use branch enquiry and valuation tracking to compare acquisition cost, progression and retained contribution across local customer channels.