Sandfords was founded in 1985 by Andrew Ellinas, who used his mother's maiden name on the letterhead. The company initially served the Highgate area, but an introduction to James Light prompted a new partnership and a move to Regent's Park. The new office opened in 1994.
Expansion was rapid and Sandfords soon gained a reputation as the agents with the best local contacts and expertise.

Sandfords soon saw the logic of expanding south of the Marylebone Road, and in 2006 Tim Fairweather joined the firm to open the Marylebone office.

The firm has been at the forefront of the technological changes that have swept the property sector. Andrew, something of a geek, personally installed the firm's first computer network, at a time when networks were the preserve of big corporations, and he wrote Sandfords' first website. The site was a dynamic websites that could be updated on the fly, one of the first for any estate agent in the UK.

Sandfords were founder shareholders in Primelocation.com, the pioneering property website, and are shareholders in Fabric, the top north London property magazine.