One of the region’s leading estate agents is launching a new business in Ipswich - almost five years after selling his last firm.
For more than a decade Jonathan Waters was one of the best known estate agents in the region, building up a group of agencies in Suffolk and Essex.
He was best known in Ipswich and his name continued in the branding of the Ipswich business even after he sold the agency in 2014.
Now though he says it is "back to basics", with his new firm Foxhall Estate Agents offering a traditional personal service.
The agency has taken part of office space at 625 Foxhall Road, where he originally started in Ipswich in 1999.
It even has the same phone number.
He said: "I'm Ipswich born and bred and it was always my plan to come to Ipswich.
"I first got into the business in 1988. Thirty-one years ago I started at Connells in Felixstowe.
"Jonathan Waters Estate Agents opened in February 1992 and then at this site on January 2, 1999."
The business grew with branches in Essex and in the Buttermarket, Ipswich, as well as in Martlesham and Norwich Road, Ipswich.
Mr Waters sold the business in September 2014 to Jane Russell, his long-term personal assistant and manager at Ipswich.
At its peak, in 2007, the Jonathan Waters group employed nearly 50 staff.
He revealed: "I had been thinking about selling it. I sold it because my mum was becoming very poorly and I needed to look after her.
"I became her full-time carer for 18 months after I sold the business.
"I didn't want to retire as such, I thought I would like to get back into it.
"I am too young to retire, I am 55 now."
Foxhall Estate Agents is a new name and a new start, he said.
"I absolutely love the business," he said. "It is the only thing I really know.
"There is still a place for proper estate agents with local knowledge.
"We have nearly 60 years experience of the business between us.
"We opened on Saturday and we already have instructions from as far Felixstowe and Needham Market, not just east Ipswich."
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