Louise Dell, Director at Kyero.com: Helping UK Buyers Find Property Overseas

Kyero is the leading property platform for UK buyers of European overseas property. It now has the largest selection of property – currently over half a million properties – for sale across Europe, with Spain, France and Portugal being our leading markets.

So far, the site has helped over 40,000 people make a move overseas, not only by helping them find the right property, but also by providing advice and information to make the whole process of buying in a foreign market easier and more straightforward. Kyero works with over 5,000 agents throughout Europe, meaning  we have an unparalleled insight and knowledge of the process and market.

How did you come up with the idea for the company?

My husband Martin and I had made a – fairly impulsive – decision to quit the rat race and buy a home in Europe – we’d both had stressful corporate careers in London and had just had enough. We bought half an acre of Spanish mountainside and were full of romantic notions of getting some goats and running an almond farm…then reality hit!

The whole endeavour was far more challenging than we hoped, and we had no real understanding of the process of buying overseas. This was all brought into stark focus when our ‘lawyer’ José announced (as we paid him) that he was not in fact a qualified lawyer at all! We realised that there must be a lot of people in our position, and that there was a real need for a specialist overseas property portal aimed at supporting UK buyers.

And so Kyero was born. We started with an initial investment of £5,000 and set it up from the spare room of our (second attempt at a) Spanish home, a slightly more realistic townhouse in a beautiful fishing village called Almuñécar on the South coast.

What advice would you give to other aspiring female entrepreneurs?

I think being female is a strength: leverage the skills that are traditionally viewed as female, the soft or (as Seth Godin calls them “real” skills) to create a culture where your team feels valued, heard and engaged in the mission and purpose of the company.  I’m in firm agreement with Peter Drucker’s famous quote that ‘Culture eats Strategy for breakfast’.

All of our team at Kyero is nomadic – we’ve never had an office, and many of our team are based overseas. Flexible and remote working has given us a real superpower as a business – it’s allowed us to attract exceptional talent and skills that we might not have done with a conventional office set up. Don’t imagine that just because you can’t – or don’t want to – work the traditional 9-5 that your career can’t flourish. You just need to find the right company with a more progressive attitude.

Never be afraid not to know or to ask questions.  Often the obvious questions are the most valuable and fruitful.

What can we hope to see from Kyero.com in the future?

Kyero is experiencing strong growth at the moment, despite everything Brexit / Covid, and this shows no sign of slowing. There are an awful lot of people looking to make the move overseas at the moment – after all if you’re working remotely why dial in from Croydon if you can do the same from Costa Del Sol.

We’re partnering with more and more agents and expanding our property portfolio all the time, and we also have plans to focus on new geographies in the future.  Our success lies in combining powerful technology with real-life experience and the human touch. We continually invest in both to make sure Kyero stays ahead.