Design your dream Estate Agency.

tootsmyboots

potter78 wrote: »

If everyone paid asking price we wouldn't really need estate agents.

Makes me wonder how come it is only cars and houses we really do deals on. I know you can deal for work done like builders, windows etc. But almost everything else we buy in this country we pay the asking price for. Does anyone know why houses and cars are different historically, other than being much higher value items?

Maybe in a far off utopia everyone will ask what they actually want for their house and then everyone will know where they stand. :rotfl:

Errata

Was thinking of £50 to a local charity if we went down that route. As was said earlier, if the commission to us is £1800, I believe £50 to be affordable.

But how do you decide which charity ? How will you publicise your donation so people know your agency has a heart ? Giving X charities £50 a sale may benefit them, but it could be a bit like an elephant pi$$ing in the dark: everyone gets a nice warm feeling but nobody knows where it's come from.

mandi

I think its really important that you " promise " a 24 hour call back , after a vendor has had a viewing , giving feed back .

You should also implimement a " to do " list, wherby if a negotiator is away the following day , they can leave any tasks they need attended to on the list for someone else to pick up .

Good Luck Estate Agent

googler

Contessa wrote: »

Googlestreet view is a real help to me in revealing what the EA's photos carefully try to hide, e.g. busy roads, yellow lines, new development, on what was a cricket ground, now overlooking the garden. But, best of all, an electricity sub-station next to the garage in the garden!

The other take on this is that the EA is showing what they're selling in the photo - they're not selling the substation.

mqandy

It's the small things that bug me as a buyer: Putting properties online with no photos and deliberately not taking photos of 'ugly' key rooms like the bedroom.

As an EA I'd want to be thinking a little further ahead - to a time when properties are mostly sold online.

Perhaps offer priced up Additional Services such as paid valuations for people not looking to sell - £50 for 30 minutes of your time to hear what value their new kitchen has added, for example. Or a Property Search service where you help people find obscure properties from any agency - might be useful for older buyers not clued up on rightmove, etc...

googler

mqandy wrote: »

It's the small things that bug me as a buyer: Putting properties online with no photos and deliberately not taking photos of 'ugly' key rooms like the bedroom.

...Perhaps offer priced up Additional Services such as paid valuations for people not looking to sell - £50 for 30 minutes of your time .....

How do you know it's the EAs decision to exclude a certain room? It might be the owner forbidding them to publish......

The public being the public, given the choice between a free valuation for someone thinking of selling, and £50 having admitted they're not planning on selling, 999 out of a 1000 will pretend they are selling and take the free one.....

Estate_Agent

If we do the charity idea it would be relatively easy to implement. Once a good local charity has been decided upon, you talk to the local press and periodically throughout the year we have a piece on who we're raising money for and why. We can also do follow up pieces where we spend a day mucking in. ie if we support an under 11's football team and the clubhouse needs repainting, we give up a day off and go and paint it. I don't mind getting my hands dirty, and if we do support a charity i want it to be more than just a financial contribution.

I like the to-do list mandi. A coomon sense idea that is easy to implement and strengthens our service levels. Thanks.

I would never feel comfortable charging for a valuation. I know that people have them done with no intention of selling, but if I get in front of them and they like me, it can only help my word-of-mouth business.

Lastly, I have seen a fantastic five bed bungalow in my area with another agent. The vendors advise they haven't had any viewings and they are coming to the end of their contract with their current agent who doesn't return calls as to why they are not getting viewings. I think the substation 12 inches from their bungalow may have something to do with it but the vendors disagree. Crazy world.

DKLS

Include as many details and photos of the garden as is possible, for me the garden is as important as the house.

Include dimensions in feet and metres if under 1/4 of an acre and state if its north/south facing.

Set up a QA process for all images if they dont pass the basic standards of being in focus, well lit and accurate dont include them.

I will be looking to move this year and my most precious resource is my time hence make the online ad right with a wealth of information and your much likelier to get a viewing.

Estate_Agent

Thanks DKLS. We use a professional property photographer because it makes sense. He can't sell houses and I can't take photo's. We're each doing what we do best.

DKLS

Estate_Agent wrote: »

Thanks DKLS. We use a professional property photographer because it makes sense. He can't sell houses and I can't take photo's. We're each doing what we do best.

Am pleased to hear it, I see so many crappy photos on rightmove, its a huge put off, especially for me as I cant spare time for many viewings.