New thinking for options offered by agents?

chickmug

It is interesting to read comments along the lines of how to save money on agents fees, do it your self or use one of the web based companies. As an agent (retired) I was always trying new ideas and offering new options for those looking to sell but wondered if the mass market would accept the idea of a price list (menu) of options? I am now retired but still have an interest in my old business so am looking for some feedback.

The options that were offered were both ends of the scale, but all permutations in between, but roughly covered: -

• A very basic service of doing photographs, sales details & web entries.

• The full traditional agency service.

• A service where you found your own buyer and we would see the sale through, checking out finance and liaising with the various parties as and when needed. This proved quite popular as so many who had sold privately got themselves in a pickle as to what should happen when and not being happy that the people who agreed to buy could afford to buy.

Unless the full agency service we had a price list of add ons and also, at any point, the facility to upgrade to a higher level of service but not a downgrade.

I am aware, and agree with you the average standard of EA’s is poor, and I know most EAs would rather get the full service agreed and would not even consider any pared down options. But I found it worked as there were always those that started on one level and upgraded so giving me a benefit.

I also found many potential sellers in disbelief as there was a new option being offered they had not come across before. So feedback would be good to see if the idea is worth rolling out further.

poppysarah

The difficult bits for most people would be making sure that the buyer is in a position to buy and the haggling - I should imagine a "haggle your house price" service would be useful and an inbetween person to take the edge off those really low offers would probably help.

But the reason most people don't want to use an EA (From what I can see of local non-ea house sites) is the price - they don't like the price that an EA has valued their house at and want to get top whack when it's just not going to happen.

A sanity pill for those would probably do the rest of us a great service!

poppysarah

But at the same time you could do a service for buyers to negotiate them a good discount on a house - and take a % of that (Is that what Garringtons used to do?)

chickmug

poppysarah wrote: »

But at the same time you could do a service for buyers to negotiate them a good discount on a house - and take a % of that (Is that what Garringtons used to do?)

Thanks poppysarah

Food for thought for which I am grateful:beer:

googler

Yes, but surely the problem with providing a service for buyers is that (a) you, the EA have houses for sale; (b) the most contact you'll have with buyers is when they express an interest in something that you currently have for sale, and (c) you can't act for those buyers because you're already acting for the seller.

As an aside, traditionally in the UK, people have only paid EAs when they sell - it's a bit of a shift to get them to pay a 'buyer's agent' as well - although I believe it's quite common in other territories.

poppysarah

Oh yes it wouldn't work if the buyer wanted an EA's property - but I was thinking as an independent person to negotiate with an EA - perhaps from different parts of the UK.

googler

... but then you're in a disadvantaged negotiating position because you won't know (their) local market as well as they do....

poppysarah

googler wrote: »

... but then you're in a disadvantaged negotiating position because you won't know (their) local market as well as they do....

Tell me your address and I could give you a huge amount of information about your road, the neighbouring roads, house price trends, actual sales, all sorts of information that is essential for the negoitating process.

the internet is pretty amazing and people who know how create the data in the right form have an advantage.

An EA account on rightmove is pretty useful too apparently. Bear in mind property bee too!

googler

Yes, but your sales data will be 2-3 months out of date, and the local agents will be the only ones who know what they sold between then and now.

Whilst you'll have to do the researching, the local agents here are bound to know stuff that you won't

An EA account on Rightmove will be of hardly any use to you looking at my area, because barely 1/6th of the properties here are listed on Rightmove - the majority aren't listed there!

lostinrates

I'm loking at things wih potential and land with 'change of use' potential. It wuld be nice, although I imagine difficult for exposing vulnerabilty to legal difficulties, if agents would have confirmed their ideas that planning departments saw the same potential as the agent does!

Good luck Chickmug, it must be an exciting time to be looking at new ideas.

FWIW we have debated using a search agent and would possibly consider it

A_Nice_Englishman

I'd like to see separate costs for valuation , producing particulars, accompanying viewings (perhaps even £x per viewing), financially vetting potential buyers etc etc

In this way, a straightforward sale to a cash buyer agreed within a couple of weeks and a couple of unaccompanied viewings would attract fees reflecting the work involved by the estate agent.

At the moment, I feel the timewasters (both buyers and sellers) are being subsidised.