Twelve Top Tips
The decision to sell your home is one of the biggest most people will ever make. But the decision as to which estate agent you choose comes a close second, as it is this that will activate your move. The consequences of getting it wrong can be enormous as not only might you fail to move house, but if your property sits for too long on the market, it can become stale and end up falling in value, as nobody wants something that everybody else has apparently rejected.
But this need not happen. Get it right, and not only will you actually move, but you’ll move quickly, and at the best price the market will pay.
Swoople enables you to see the inside track of all your local estate agents. While some may appear similar, all have their unique style and local key performance characteristics. But how do you sort the wheat from the chaff? It will usually be quite a personal decision based on your own preferences and needs. But here’s a rough guide as a steer on how you might begin to assess the right agent for you.
Size
There tend to be three distinct sizes of agency:
The major brand, with outlets across the country.
They are likely to have a structured, even prescriptive approach and reliable support systems in place. Potentially impersonal, but that may not be important to you, and their sheer size suggests they know what they are doing. They are likely to have strong financial services, conveyancing and surveying departments that could be useful – or, some say, a possible distraction. Growth might have been through investment funding and acquisition.
The strong regional independent
This business is likely to have grown as a result of a good local reputation. They may have loyal staff and progressive management team. Passionate about results in a competitive field. Organised and possibly more personable than a corporate chain, they are able to access economies of scale whilst maintaining their own personality. They may have specialist sales progressors and negotiators.
The local independent
Probably run by a locally well-respected director who has a name-above-the-door to protect. Strong local repeat business and recommendations. The person who lists your property may well also negotiate your sale. Possibly limited to a specific market sector or price range, but they could be very strong in their niche.
The “Personal Agent”
This is a rapidly growing segment of the industry where individual agents have broken away from their former employer and now operate on their own, but usually backed by strong support resources provided by their “host agency” and support network. Usually a completely personal service, delivered by the same person from start to finish.
On the subject of size, you may be impressed by the number of sales an agency has to their credit. This can be reassuring, although you are really only interested in one sale – yours.
Niche.
Many agents are known to specialise in a specific segment of the market. For example, rural homes between £500,000 and £1 million. If you are selling an apartment for £375,000, they may not be the right agent for you. Although they’d still list your property on the portals and provide the same service as they do for their other clients, the one thing that could be missing would be the ability to cross-sell.
This means offering your property to buyers in your price range who might not otherwise have been attracted to it from the online description. This is an important consideration, as over 30% of sales are made to people who did not initially enquire about the property they actually purchased.
So do check that the recent sales and other properties on offer from a prospective agent are in line with your property and price expectations.
Style
There are many styles of estate agency. They may be traditional with strong local connections, or do they pride themselves on having a more contemporary approach with a strong reliance on technology. Perhaps you require a degree of discretion, or would you prefer an agent who will focus on giving your property high social media exposure? Do they have external affiliations such as a London office or international exposure? Does their branch in a neighbouring town produce a good stream of buyers that a single branch local agency might have missed?
Person
Importantly, who will actually be handling your sale? Will it be the same person you trusted when they came to list your property, or will it then be passed onto a team of negotiators and sales progressors? Maybe that’s a good thing. But ultimately, you do need someone who will be personally accountable and committed to your move, whether or not they have a team behind them.
Results
Clearly, you’d like an agent that gets results. But results can mean different things to different people. Are you mostly interested in speed, price, or certainty of sale? Every estate agency will have some way of measuring their performance, which can be helpful in assessing their likely success in those areas which are most important to you when it comes to selling your property. These could be:
- Speed of sale from listing to sale agreed
- Percentage of asking price achieved
- Percentage of sales that fall through, post sale agreed
- Market share (of properties like yours)
- Number of recent sales (like yours)
- Other stock available (like yours)
NB: Swoople publishes current stats relating to some of the above, which can be used as a benchmark. However please be aware that these are national averages and can vary significantly by region.
If these have not been addressed in the agent’s Swoople proposal, you may wish to ask the agent at the time of appraisal. A good agent should be able to answer these with confidence.
Asking Price
This is a critically important area. Get it right and you’ll probably move house. Get it wrong and you’ll probably be disappointed. The biggest trick in the book is that some agents will suggest an inflated asking price in the hope that it will sway you to instruct them. Don’t be fooled.
The problem is that the property will doubtless sit on the market for too long, effectively going stale. And nobody wants a property that everyone else has rejected. The only option left would be to lower the asking price, but this is likely to be to a figure below which you could have sold, had you originally quoted the correct asking price. A study by Rightmove, which tracked over 300,000 properties, found that 63% of those not reduced were marked as under offer or sold subject to contract, compared to only 32% of those that had been reduced in price.
Our advice is to listen to the agent who provides solid evidence of what is selling locally (not just their own sales either) and, importantly, what is failing to sell – as these competing properties do affect your own price.
Many people ask two or three agents for a Market Appraisal (that’s where Swoople comes in). This is a great way of not only assessing the right agent for you against their peers, but is also your opportunity to hear several different opinions on price. A rule of thumb formula for assessing price is to take the lowest suggested asking price and then add 40% of the difference between the lowest price and the highest price.
There is a myth that some agent under-value because they want a faster sale. This is very rare in reality as most agents know that if they quote low they won’t get the business at all. Many agent do however, overvalue, as proven by the number of properties on the market where the price has had to be reduced. According to Zoopla, 36% of recently sold homes have had their asking price reduced, with 61% of homes on the market for more than three months experiencing a price reduction
Fees
In the UK, estate agency fees range from under 1% to about 3%. As with anything, you tend to get what you pay for and it can be a serious false economy to appoint your agent based primarily on fee. More important is how much money you come out with following your sale. Some issues associated with low-value estate agents can be:
- They are usually under-resourced and cannot afford to hire the best agents, train them or provide robust sales progression. On average, cheaper agents usually have a 36% higher fall through rate than regular agents.
- Some offer a DIY service, where you would be expected to work with buyers, negotiate your own sale and become involved with linked transactions (which the relevant solicitors, mortgage brokers, surveyors etc would not permit).
- They don’t always have strong affiliate networks, nor can they afford to offer commission splits to other agents.
- The often prefer avoid the costs associated with effective technology, good quality photography, floorplans and staging.
- If they can’t protect their own income, what does it say about their ability or willingness to protect yours?
You probably don’t drive the cheapest car, you probably don’t wear the cheapest clothes, go on the cheapest holidays, sleep in the cheapest bed, nor eat at the cheapest restaurants. So why choose a cheap estate agent? When selling your property, there is simply too much at stake.
Trust and Sincerity
You’ll be sharing some pretty personal information with your estate agent, who will also be given intimate access to your most personal asset – your home! So clearly, you need to trust them. If you like your estate agent, then that’s a good starting point. Are they open and transparent? But beware of agents who simply tell you what they think you want to hear. The most effective agents tend to be those who give straight-talking sincere advice that you know in your heart makes sense.
On the other hand, it may be that a more aggressive bulldog-type sales person is more your style. If they fight for your business, then that could be a good sign that they’ll fight for your sale too.
Ultimately you need to ask yourself “Could I work with this person, and this agency? Are they credible, trustworthy and sincere?
Reviews
Fortunately, you no longer have to rely solely on your own judgement when making such an important decision. What about the reviews of many other sellers who have used an agent you might be considering? Google reviews are a great place to start, and are regarded as reliable. You can reassured if an agent has more than say fifty 4*-5* reviews. But if they have lower than a 4* rating, or they only have a handful of reviews, this could be cause for concern.
Marketing plan
Selling a property is not just a case of the agent sticking it on the portals and waiting for buyers to appear. You need to find out what your agent will do proactively. How to they qualify their buyers? Do they offer professional photography, video or drone footage? What staging advice to they offer? What is their social media engagement like? Do they include affiliate marketing, or share with other offices/companies? Do they have creative negotiation and financial services strategies? How to they ensure your sale does not fall through? Do they work with switched-on conveyancers and encourage you to secure a legal pack prior to sale? What is their position on pre-sale agreements and binding offers? Do they have retained buyer clients or relationships with local employers?
These and many other elements of an agent’s marketing plan should be impressive and reassuring. A good agent will go through these things with you. If they don’t offer to do so – ask what their marketing plan actually is!
Sole Agency
Most agents operate on a sole agency basis, whereby for a period of time you may not disengage them or instruct another estate agent. This is no bad thing as it ensures that one agency only is both committed and accountable to you and your sale. The idea is to build a platform of competition between buyers, not agents.
Some agents insist on sole selling rights, which also prevent you from selling to someone you already know (although if you already have someone in mind then they should be excluded from this clause at the outset).
In terms of the sole agency period, this can range from as much as 120 days to as few as zero days, but with a rolling 14 or 28 day notice period. It’s up to you to decide if you want to be tied in. What if you lost confidence in your agent half-way through?
Time in Business.
Some estate agency businesses have been established for many years – even 100-200 years. This suggests they are clearly tried and trusted and know what they are doing. Could it mean that they are traditional and old fashioned – you need to find out.
On the other hand, you’ll come across the new guys on the block. Highly contemporary and with a point to prove.
Neither of these are necessarily good or bad. We’d say don’t discount either on the basis of how long they have been in business, but assess them on who they are, what they do, what experience others have had with them, along with a generous dose of your own gut-feel.
In summary, estate agents come in all shapes and sizes and there is no one size fits all approach. Using the above as a guide along with your own discernment based on the information provided here at Swoople, we hope you’ll make the right choice for your own circumstances. We wish you well with your move.