You’re stressed – sellers are on the phone, their contracts are nearing the end of their term with the best selling period just round the corner. What do you do?
Spring is coming, loads of buyers/tenants are demanding viewings – but most want them at times your negs struggle with and one is ill anyway. What do you do?
With sellers you can plead for more time, hopefully at a reduced price, or you can suggest a multiple agency to keep you in the game. Otherwise your choices are limited.
This week I’ve been hugely impressed with one outfit that offers agents another chance with recalcitrant sellers. There are many good auction companies out there, but IAM sold seem to offer a genuine bespoke solution for agents who don’t have the infrastructure or inclination to put one in place.
Their MD, Jamie Cooke – a live wire and out of necessity something of a control freak – wants agents to be able to hand over these instructions and sit back as they do the rest.
In only seven years his company now sells the second highest number of lots by transaction in the UK – impressive.
Perhaps at last, auctions will start to become a more reasonable solution earlier in the sales process and stop being seen as the last chance saloon. From what I’ve seen, they deserve a fresh look.
As my own firm Viewber approaches 1,000 viewings, agent sign-ups are increasing rapidly with almost 50 – some national, others high end – using or trialling the service to back up their negotiators.
Feedback from the industry is that buyers’ and tenants’ expectations of being able to do what they want when they want are creating challenges.
I remember clearly from my days as a negotiator that we’d rate how serious someone was as a buyer by whether they’d take time off to do viewings – but in those days they’d only be talking to a few local agents on the phone and bosses were more lenient about taking time off.
Those days have changed and if you won’t show it they’ll move on to something else, such is the pace of new prospects dropping in their inbox. Solving that issue saves a lot of headaches, it seems.
Bottom line is that there are options out there to allow agents to do more with what they have, both for sellers/landlords and buyers/tenants – and outsourcing an auction function or viewings are merely two of them.
* Ed Mead was until last year a London agent with Douglas & Gordon. He is now a director of outsourced viewing service www.Viewber.co.uk and an independent property consultant / commentator: ed-mead.com
To state the obvious the problem is that Auctions dont suit the majority of buyers who need to have everything in place to bid finance, surveys and more often that not an existing property to sell unless they are prepared to bridge . Bridging a very risky venture in anything but a rising market. Likewise the vendor if moving needs to have a relocation property in place too Its a highly unsuitable method for the majority of home owners .
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I agree…..because of the rules and restrictions auctions are suitable for comparatively few buyers and therefore few properties.
Just because a property needs loads of updating, new kitchen, bathroom, central heating, double glazing, rewiring, redoration etc. it doesn’t mean we can’t get a good sale price for it…..in fact in the current market this type of property is very popular with buyers seeing it as a ‘blank canvas’.
I would probably only consider auction for a property that was virtually unsaleable to most people….. such as serious structural problems for instance. Does anyone think differently?
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redoration is the modern term for redecoration without the ec in it……..
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Property Industry Eye’s Strapline….WHERE NEWS COMES FIRST. Is this really news? I have much respect for what Ed Mead did whilst at D&G, but a thinly veiled attempt at making news out of using an auction website which segue’s nicely into yet another plug for Viewber, is boring to say the least.
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I think what you guys are missing is that I Am Sold sell properties predominantly by the “Modern Method of Auction” which differs from traditional auction.
The Modern Method allows the buyer typically 28 days to exchange contracts following sale arranged. And importantly, this therefore allows buyers to arrange traditional mortgage finance for their purchase. Therefore the marketing of the property via the Modern Method opens up to the whole of market encompassing both cash buyers and investors as well as your average purchaser requiring a mortgage – exactly the same people you would be selling to under a private treaty sale.
I’m with Ed Mead, what I Am Sold are doing is extraordinary. You guys should at least talk to them. I have.
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And the reason we/you can’t do the same with our/your marketing is? Also to get a guaranteed mortgage in place in 28 days with all the affordability checks nowadays…how often does that happen? I concede you may have a different category of buyers but for many of our first time buyers it takes a lot longer than that…even with a pre-agreed AIP.
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I may be being a little unfair….but I just don’t understand what they can do more than me to secure a sale which the vendor is paying me to do….and which will probably cost the owner double (my fee and I Am Sold’s fee) through the other route?
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