‘You can’t just sell property on Rightmove anymore’
The thorny issue of how agents should go about selling property in the current market gets an airing on day four of the latest video instalment from the self-proclaimed Great And The Good of the Property Industry.
The thorny issue of how agents should go about selling property in the current market gets an airing on day four of the latest video installment from the self-proclaimed Great And The Good of the Property Industry.
Avid readers will already know that The Neg has been reporting all week on November’s fireside style chat which was co-ordinated by Russell Quirk, Co-Founder of ProperPR and The Giggs Group Founder, Matt Giggs.
This latest episode certainly turns up the heat as the panel discuss how old school agents sell homes compared to the easier time that agents have had of late, given a buoyant market for four years or so.
LISTINGS
Off market listings, spinning viewers… Can agents get away with ‘just sticking a listing on Rightmove’ now?
For those who have been in the estate agency industry for less than four or five years that perception may will persist – indeed no doubt for some that will be the reality.
But is that attitude sustainable in a weaker market? The panel thinks not.
So sit back and get your notepads and popcorn at the ready for some ‘old school’ tips and advice as the panel, unsurprisingly, takes issue with the ‘easy way’ in which some estate agents operate.
You’re not going to succeed next year if you are going to rely on Rightmove.”
“You’re not going to succeed next year if you are going to rely on Rightmove,” argues Matt Giggs. “That isn’t selling a property anymore and it probably won’t be for quite a number of years.”
ADVICE
Meanwhile Iain McKenzie, Chief Executive of The Guild of Property Professionals, offers some sage words of advice.
“How would I help the negotiator sell a property?
Train the valuer to stop pinning the bloody tail on the donkey.”
“I would go and train the valuer to stop pinning the bloody tail on the donkey; stop saying your house is worth £300k and [that] I’ll definitely get it for you and start talking about the market will dictate the price.
“Whatever offer we get is the offer that is right and we’ll try and make that work for you.
“Then the negotiator can go out and say, ‘what’s it worth to you?’
“’It’s only worth 280? Okay we’ll talk to the owner, it’s not an offer, we’ll go and talk to them and see if we can make that work for you’.”
MEAT
Running at 14 minutes and 27 seconds there’s some real meat on the bone to be had here.
So how should estate agents sell property in the current market?
Find out from the experts HERE.
The panel also included Peter Rollings, former CEO and current board member at Foxtons; Sarah Edmundson, Chief Executive of charity Agents Together; Gemma Noonan, Operations Director at The Giggs Group; Adam Day, UK Country Leader at eXp and Mark Burgess, Chief Executive at Iceberg Digital and software CRM, Lifesycle.
Pre-internet buyers and potential buyers contacted estate agents to see what was available, what had sold and what was coming up for sale.
Negotiators had card boxes with applicants, and some were marked HOT; they were applicants ready to buy either because they were FTB or they had sold.
Every applicant with a property to sell was chased up as we tried to obtain the instructions for our firm.
This was estate agency in the ’80s and ’90s.
Today, the buyers sit in the background watching Rightmove and only contact the agent when the ‘right’ property comes along. How things have changed.
To win now, you need to know your area, know your clients, and work your patch. Many agents now use software to bombard vendors who have their properties on the market with their rivals, all telling the same story about why they are better than their current agent.
The amount of stock hanging around now is because vendors have not been challenged about their expectations. Or the agents have overvalued to get the instructions, often to justify their fees.
Thirty years ago, this approach was a new business model, making some people very rich. 2023 is going to be a very different market.
Good to see Russel Q has calmed down and appears to have accepted that the property landscape isn’t on a permanently upward trajectory without any hint of turbulence. That said, 50 years ago the average for a detached house in Hampshire was £4,500 but between then and now, there were peaks AND troughs. We’re heading toward a trough but it’s worth pointing out to buyers what happens over the longer term. It’s hard to conceive that the market will spiral downward forever.
I was, though, a little surprised at the debate around ‘property prices being subject to whatever the market will stand’. Of course they are! However, there’s an optimal price, (by that I mean the highest price that someone would pay) and below that, a pyramid of prices that would be paid by everyone else. At the bottom, you have everyone who’d take a property of your hands if you give it to them. You can’t achieve more than a property is worth but you sure as hell can achieve less, especially if you don’t care enough to do the job right! All that said, over-valuing is a different debate. It all boils down to getting the ‘right’ price.
The agent’s job is to get as close to the top of that pyramid as possible – using their professionalism. Any idiot can find buyers for properties by going to the local pub and offering them for half of what they’re worth. Professionalism, looking after the client’s interests, requires knowledge, excellent property and corporate marketing, hard work (now the market has tightened), and doggedness. If Rightmove were ever to synthesise ALL of the necessary skills, and value that agents add, then agents would be in trouble – but they won’t, because when it comes to something as nuanced as property, there’s nobody better to have on your team than an estate agent who knows what they’re doing and is hungry to get the job done and who understands that their personal integrity and value is on the line with every transaction they make.