ASK YOUR AGENT QUESTIONS THAT REALLY MATTER…

I spoke to a potential new client today. She rang me as I was recommended to her by a friend and she wanted to know more about how I could help her move house.

She was in a very tough position as she was due to be repossessed in a couple of months time and was currently on the market with another estate agency but wasn’t getting much interest.

Anyway, one of the first things she said was ‘another estate agent has offered to sell my house for 0.5%, can you match or beat that?’ My reply was ‘what is their sale agreed to completion percentage?’… she didn’t know! I explained that given her situation, she ought to know that as although the cheap fee looks attractive, and assuming they did find a buyer, who was willing to pay the right price, what would the cost be to her if the sale was to fall through 4 weeks down the line? Both in terms of money and wasted time and stress. Can you imagine, she would have gone house hunting on the coast, found a property she loved, offered on it, had her offer accepted, paid for surveys and solicitors and then her buyer pulls out and its all wasted, not to mention the fact that the bank would probably repossess the house. 90% (9 out of 10) sales we agree go through first time. That is massively above the national average.

The next thing she said was ‘but my current agent is advertising the property on rightmove.co.uk’. I said ‘and how are they dealing with the enquiries that come in?’ She didn’t know! I explained that so much has to happen between a property being ‘advertised on rightmove.co.uk’ to going under offer, here’s a brief list

• The property has to be advertised in such a way as to achieve maximum interest (it’s not a case of just sticking it on the internet, there is so much more to it than that)
• Assuming the marketing is to a standard that actually generates enquiries, those enquiries need to be dealt with, and quickly. Bearing in mind one estate I used to work with never used to deal with emailed enquiries, his opinion was ‘if they are serious they will call’. So you need to ask, ‘what is your process when you receive an enquiry?’ Does it get dealt with within 10 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day, 2 days?
• If an emailed enquiry comes in, how quickly is it being dealt with (because its likely that the potential buyer would have enquired about a load more properties too), is the agent simply emailing back or are they ringing them first (while the property is fresh in their head). If no answer, do they continue to chase the buyer? or just ‘wait for them to come back’
• Once they have made contact with the buyer, are they being urged to view the property or just being sent the full particulars?
• Viewings then need to go ahead. Is the agent accompanying all the viewings like they should be or is the vendor showing them around? How and how quickly are they being followed up for their feedback?
• An offer needs to be placed, negotiated and accepted… What is the agents asking price to sale agreed price percentage?.. If it’s impressive, they will know. Ask to see some ‘recent’ examples.

All too often people are tempted by cheap fees which always surprises me considering that the cheap estate agent will be handling their most valuable possession. It really is true, you get what you pay for. If an estate agent is unable to negotiate a fair price for his/her services, how is he/she going to negotiate you the highest price for your house when it isn’t even their money they are playing with.

So please, when you are speaking to estate agents, make sure you ask them the right questions or better still, test them. Enquire about some properties they have for sale and see how efficient they are.

All the best,

p.s. Would you like more impartial advice? Head on over to my FREE eGuides page by clicking here.