A Question of Property: Liz Brown, MD of Connells, Midlands

How big is your part of Connells? I look after 55 branches and approximately 140 staff in the Midlands for Connells including land, new homes, mortgages services, sales and lettings. Are online/hybrid agents making headway? They were during the first six months of the year when the market was more buoyant, and the instruction-to sale conversion rate was high up at the 80%. It’s then that we saw a considerable take-up among vendors for hybrid agents. But as the market has become tougher, so this has changed. Vendors are realising the hard way that in more difficult markets, you need a little more expertise and proactive support to achieve a sale. You’ve got to know your customer base much better and be able to be able to put chains together. We are picking up instructions from online agents, which fall into two categories. These are either failed online attempts to sell – people who’ve tried online and haven’t sold and who are then seriously annoyed when they have to pay twice. Then there are the people who do get an offer via a hybrid-type agency listing, but the sale goes nowhere, and they have to abandon the offer and start…

Read More »