Estate Agent Today: Pioneer of 'extreme house selling' takes extreme hit on property

geneer

The relentlessly gloomy estate agent today has published another corker.

I'm starting to wonder if this is in fact a parody web-site.

http://www.estateagenttoday.co.uk/news_features/Pioneer-of-extreme-house-selling-takes-extreme-hit-on-property-price

Pioneer of 'extreme house selling' takes extreme hit on property price




Monday 10th October 2011
A man who pioneered a concept called ‘extreme house selling’ and who founded a website called Property Selling Strategy, offering consultancy to help individuals and estate agents (at £1,000 per day plus expenses), has had to concede defeat on the sale of his own property.

Jonathan Blain, of Berkshire, had renovated a house in Devon at a cost of £850,000, and in 2008 put it up for sale with a £3m price tag.

The house was repossessed last year and has now sold for just £651,000.

Blain described himself on his website as a ‘property selling strategist’, a thought leader and an international best-selling author.

He said: “I might not have a great deal of experience in property sales, but that is my strength. I am not constrained by industry thinking and historic practices.”

His attempts to sell his property were high profile and garnered enormous publicity. In one of many interviews, he told the Telegraph: “Estate agents have a formula: written particulars, local press ads, popping a photo on a website. That’s worked until now but suddenly it’s not enough. A lot of other skills can be put into selling, but agents don’t possess them.”

The aggressive marketing campaign included contacting business people, handing out brochures to City workers, and making a YouTube video.

When he was forced to reduce the price of the property to £1.35m, he even chucked in a free speedboat and a Range Rover to try to tempt buyers of The Old Bakehouse, near Totnes.

Whilst Blain defended the high price of the property, critics pointed out that the house was over-renovated and that it was not even detached but part of a terrace.

Other possible drawbacks were that it had its garden on the other side of the street, had only one car parking space and with only 2,400 sq ft of living area was probably not the size most millionaire buyers envisaged.

Blain told Duncan Farmer in the Mail on Sunday that he still felt the house was worth far more than £651,000 and that the banks probably “didn’t know what they were selling”.

Estate agents also defended their original valuations. Savills put it at just over £2m, saying the house at that point included five acres of land. The agents also advised him to sell the property unrenovated for £1m.

Knight Frank in Exeter valued the property at £2.55m but,said Sandy Davenport: “Those were different times. The waterfront market was very hot then.”

The property was eventually sold by Fulfords in Totnes on behalf of the banks. Jason Wells, of Fulfords, had valued it at less than £1m last year and told the Mail on Sunday that the original valuations were ‘ridiculous’.

Blain’s website can still be viewed but it does not appear to have been updated since November 2008.

Blain is now working as a careers coach and executive CV guru, according to a profile on a social networking site.