Smarter Ways

Posted on Thursday, January 25, 2018

One of estate agency’s fundamental tasks is to secure the highest price that an able purchaser will pay for your property in a given market.

Most estate agents operate using certain procedures and protocols that have been employed for decades, if not centuries. In addition to the somewhat old-fashioned system of property transfer we have in this country, there are traditional elements of the sales process that have become “the norm”.

Examples of these include the way in which viewings are conducted and how buyers and sellers are treated, both of which could do with a concerted makeover nationwide. The most obvious example is the way in which prices are maximised. As an industry, estate agents have facilitated a culture of offers below the asking price in this country, which is surely counterproductive to the seller’s primary objective.

Promoting offers below the asking price encourages sellers to quote ambitious prices in order to accommodate low offers, which in itself can reduce the number of viewings. Offers below the asking price should be regarded as a failure, not a success. Our reputation thrives best, not on a culture of satisfied clients, but of delighted ones, and we find this is achieved when we submit offers over the asking price. (In fact, we achieve 99.6% of the asking price compared to the national average of 95%.)

There are several ways of achieving this, using well-proven and highly strategic marketing initiatives. It would certainly be un-commercial of us to detail these here, but when the time comes for you to sell, we recommend you question your agent as to strategy behind “quoting an asking price” and how they will methodically achieve the very highest price the market will pay. Why not contact us for bespoke advice and we’ll let you in to a secret or two!