Consumer Guide: 10 Things Your Estate Agent ‘Should’ be Doing...in order to sell your property for the best possible price in the shortest possible time

Thank you very much for downloading this guide, we hope you find it helpful. If you have any questions or comments or perhaps you would like to organise a free consultation so that we can help you sell your property quickly for the best price, then please click here.

“ “contentsPage 1: Valuing your property correctly

Page 1: Ensuring your properties presentation is the best it can be

Page 2: Increased marketing on all the major property portals

Page 2: Reacting quickly

Page 3: Being available all of the time and NEVER miss an enquiry

Page 3: Accompanying ALL viewings

Page 4: Gathering constructive feedback from every viewing

Page 4: Reviewing the marketing every week and making improvements where needed

Page 5: Qualifying potential buyers

Page 5: Help with your property purchase as well as your sale

Page 6: Comparison tick sheet

We were kept up to date at every step of the way, from regular phone calls on feedback from viewings to updates on the progress of the sale. For me, this is what makes your agency stand out, the personal touch

Jenny, Downsized

1. Valuing your property correctlyWhen it comes to placing a value on your property,

getting it correct from the start is crucial as an

over-inflated asking price could cost you thousands

in the long run. A property’s value can only be

assessed on evidence of the prices achieved for

similar style properties in a comparable area and

the condition of the market at that time. There

are various ways of getting this information and

your estate agent should use it along with his or

her experience of the local area to give you an

accurate value. A common mistake made by

many estate agents is that they look at the ‘asking

prices’ of similar competing properties, however

a property for sale could have been so for 5,6,7

months and be marketed 15% over its value.

How we do it: Only base the value on factual similar

SOLD prices.

2. Ensuring your property’s presentation is the best it can beWhen it comes to marketing a property for sale

(whether you have a 1 bed flat or a rural mansion),

its common knowledge that all buyers will begin and

maintain their property search online, on websites

such as rightmove.co.uk, findaproperty.com or

primelocation.com (plus many more). Bearing in

mind that when buyers search they get a long list of

available properties in front of them, it is imperative

that your estate agent invests in making sure your

property is the one that catches the buyers’ eye and

is the one they want to view. The first step to achieving

this is to ensure the photographs are taken by a

professional architectural photographer, someone

who is qualified in making properties look the best

they can. Your estate agent ‘should’ be using a

professional photographer as part of their service, but

if not, research a local one, have them do the photos

for you and supply these to your estate agent to be

used with all marketing.

How we do it: Market every property with professional

photography at NO EXTRA COST

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3. Increased marketing on all the major property portalsIt’s not enough for your estate agent to say ‘we

are on the main property portals’. You should be

asking, ‘which ones do you advertise on’? How is

my property going to be advertised? How often will

it be reviewed? How and when will the enquiries

be handled? The UK’s number 1 property portal,

www.rightmove.co.uk, have ‘premium packages’

available to all estate agents. A ‘premium listing’

on rightmove (together with your professional

photography) will increase the amount of people

who click to see more details of your house by 34%*

and will increase the requests for further details/a

viewing, by 21%*. A ‘featured property’ listing on

rightmove.co.uk means that every time a buyer

searches for a property and your house is within

their criteria, you will be right at the very top of

the page (above the long list of search results).

All of these benefits are available to every estate

agent who advertises on rightmove.co.uk but very

few actually use them. We do, and the results are

massive.

*Source: rightmove.co.uk

How we do it: Market all properties with a ‘premium

listing’

4. Reacting quicklyIt’s all very well being on the major portals, having

a board outside your house and so on, but

how quickly are the leads that the advertising is

generating being dealt with? If they are never

dealt with, you won’t see any benefit, if they are

dealt with (by telephone) within 1 hour when

your property is still fresh in their mind, you will see

a massive benefit. As mentioned before, it’s no

longer enough to just ‘be on the major property

portals’, there is a whole process that should be

going on behind the scenes when the buyer clicks

to request more details or a viewing. How and how

quickly are the leads which are generated being

dealt with? Does your estate agent just reply by

email? (Risking that the enquirer may have come

away from their computer). Does your estate

agent just call them? What if they don’t answer?

Do they leave a voicemail? How many times do

they follow up on that person? These are all very

important questions because your house may

not be the only one they have enquired about.

With ‘able’ buyers few and far between at the

moment, it’s important they buy your house.

How we do it: Each and every enquiry is dealt

with within 1 working hour, initially by telephone

and if there is no answer, we leave a voicemail

and follow up with an email, if we haven’t had a

response within 24 hours, we do the same process

all over again (as many times as we need to until

we get a reply).

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on average these generate34% more views than standard listings21% more enquiries than standard listings

5. Being available all of the time and NEVER missing an enquiryTypically, estate agents open at 9am and close

at 6pm on weekdays, 4pm on Saturdays and

are closed on Sundays and bank holidays,

inconveniently when most people are not at work

and so available to view properties. When the

agents are closed, the caller gets a pre recorded

voicemail message telling them ‘we are closed’.

Isn’t it our job as an agent to be available when

potential buyers and our clients are too? How

many potential viewings are you missing out on

because your estate agent says ‘sorry, we can’t

do Thursday at 7pm because we are closed’? This

is even more important if your ideal buyer would

be a single professional or professional couple

when evenings and weekends are likely to be the

only time they are able to view.

How we do it: We are open between 8am – 8pm

7 days a week (on average 33 hours per week

longer than most estate agents), 364 days a year

to ensure we never miss an opportunity to sell our

clients’ property, and on top of that, when we

are ‘closed’ (after 8pm), we have a specialist

team who answer our calls 24/7. How many estate

agents can honestly say that they will NEVER miss

an opportunity to sell your house?

6. Accompanying ALL viewingsApart from the fact that you are paying your

estate agent to sell your house, showing buyers

around should be a given, as there are many

benefits to your estate agent accompanying all

the viewings. Firstly , they would have built up a

rapport with the potential buyer and so should

know exactly what they do and don’t want

from a property. All buyers will ultimately buy on

compromise, for example, want a large garden

and lots of off road parking but eventually buy the

house which has a large garden and only one off

road parking space. Your estate agent will know

this information and rather than selling the fact

it has only one parking space (the buyer ideally

wants more), they will sell the fact that it has a

large garden which the buyer is more interested

in. Secondly, the estate agent will get honest initial

feedback from the buyer; instead of buyers being

polite to you and you finish the viewing feeling

positive, with your hopes raised, when in fact

they may have thought the opposite about the

property.

How we do it: Accompany every single viewing.

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24/7

7. Gathering constructive feedback from every viewingFeedback is crucial to the sale of each and every

property. On average, a typical buyer will view

9 properties before they decide which one to

buy and as there can only be one buyer for your

house, that leaves 8 people who won’t buy it.

However, those 8 people are crucial to the selling

process as they , if asked the right questions, can

give constructive feedback. They have access to

every house on the market similar to yours (and

have probably viewed them all). By constructive,

we don’t mean a vague ‘it wasn’t for us’, ‘we

didn’t like it’. The estate agent can probe further

to ask ‘why wasn’t it for you’? why didn’t you like

it? How did it compare to the other houses you

viewed at the weekend? With this information,

patterns are likely to start appearing such as,

the bathroom needs updating, the road is too

noisy and then, with your estate agents’ help,

you can decide what changes can be made in

order to make the next viewing more positive.

Maybe you can install a low cost, white bathroom

suite; maybe you upgrade the double glazing.

Feedback is crucial.

How we do it: Follow up every viewing and glean

constructive feedback

8. Reviewing the marketing every week and making improvements where neededYour estate agent should be contacting you every

week, or every fortnight at the very least, to review

the marketing. This is ideally done face to face to

discuss how the marketing is going to date. The

meeting should include recent viewing feedback

and marketing statistics from the property portals.

Estate agents have what is called rightmoveplus

where we can see exactly how your property is

performing in comparison to other houses similar to

yours on the market such as, how many times it has

appeared in a property search, how many people

have clicked to see full details of your house and

then how many people have enquired about/

viewed the property. Again, this information is

crucial as something as simply changing the main

image from the front of the property to a picture

of the nice open plan kitchen (for example) can

literally double the click through rate (CTR) which

will lead to more enquiries and viewings, increasing

your chances of a sale at the best possible price. It

is also important that these reviews are carried out

to avoid your house ‘stagnating’. If after 4/6 weeks

there hasn’t been much interest, something has to

be changed otherwise each and every day your

house remains on the market unsold, it becomes

more and more stagnant and so decreases the

chances of a sale near the asking price. Changes

to improve the marketing and therefore saleability

should be made.

How we do it: Review the marketing and feedback

of every property every week and advise our

clients accordingly.

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you should change the...

9. Qualify potential buyersIf all of the above is done, your chances of

selling for the best possible price in the shortest

possible time are massively increased. So what

should your estate agent be doing once they

receive an offer on your property? Well, before

entering into negotiations with them, there are two

important checks to be done. The buyer should

be ‘financially qualified’ and ‘chain checked’.

Financial qualification can be achieved by seeing

a copy of their mortgage agreement in principle

and proof of mortgage deposit, it may also be

done by insisting the buyer speaks to the estate

agents’ preferred mortgage advisor to ensure the

potential buyer has the availability of a mortgage

at the level required. Next, your estate agent

should be checking their chain (if applicable).

This is when your estate agent speaks to their

estate agent to assess the solidity of your buyers’

buyer, their buyer and so on. Speaking to each

and every estate agent in the chain and asking

questions such as when was the sale agreed, have

you seen proof of mortgage and deposit, has the

mortgage valuation been carried out yet, are

solicitors instructed, have draft contracts been sent

and approved, these due diligence checks, when

carried out, mean your sale is much less likely to

fall through later down the line and causing a lot

more stress than necessary.

How we do it: Carry out chain checks on every

offer we receive and have the buyer speak to our

independent mortgage advisor or request to see a

copy of their mortgage agreement in principle.

10. Help with your purchase as well as your saleOnce all the above has been done, you are

officially under offer and it is over to the solicitors

to carry out the legal process with the help of

our estate agent keeping everyone informed. Is

that it? No, we don’t think so. We see finding and

securing a buyer as only 50% of our duty to our

clients. The other 50% now begins, helping our

clients buy a property. Typically, estate agents

would leave you to fend for yourself when it comes

to your property search but they have so much

expertise (which has been proved as they have

managed to do all the above to secure you a

great buyer) so why not share that expertise with

you to help you buy your next property at the best

possible price on the best possible terms. Your

estate agent is a professional negotiator and has

access to a whole range of tools that you don’t

have so shouldn’t they be using those skills and

tools to help you buy too?

How we do it: Once we have secured you a buyer,

we will then view properties with you (if necessary),

once you have highlighted 1,2,3+ properties that

you may be interested in buying, we will then use

all the tools available to us to reappraise the house

(just because it’s on the market for a certain price

it doesn’t mean it’s worth that), advise you on the

value and then negotiate with the selling agent on

your behalf, if you would like us to.

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We feel that everything mentioned in this consumer guide is absolutely crucial when it comes to selling

a property for the best possible price in the shortest possible time. Below, we have put together a check

list to help you compare the services of the various estate agents you will probably be meeting over the

coming weeks.

10 Things your estate agent ‘should’ be doing

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Give an accurate valuation based on factual sold prices of similar properties

Marketing your property using professionally taken pictures to ensure maximum interest (at no extra cost to you)

Advertising your property using ‘premium listings’ on all the major property websites such as rightmove.co.uk, findaproperty.com, primelocation.com (at no extra cost)

Responding to all incoming enquiries about your property within 1 hour

Be available to you, and to show prospective buyers your property, between 8am – 8pm 7 days a week

Accompanying ALL viewings

Gathering ‘constructive’ feedback from ALL viewings

Using that feedback to review the marketing on a weekly basis and making improvements where necessary

Qualifying potential buyer ability to proceed with the purchase

Once a buyer is secured, become your personal ‘buying agent’ helping you to secure your next property at the best possible price on the best possible terms

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Thank you very much for downloading this guide, we hope you found it helpful. If you have any questions or comments or perhaps you would like to organise a free consultation so that we can help you sell your property quickly for the best price, then please click here.

Many thanksPerry Power & Paul O’shea

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