Bloated listings as buyers can't find funds, say Rightmove

The double edged sword; Let them over price. Stand your ground and explain, be professional but assertive. Over pricing will come back to you when it's not sold. Vendors rarely sell when over priced (also say RM) and soon learn (some refuse to!). Over priced properties also help to sell the correct priced home which looks to much more inviting in a buyers market.

We have one local agent who double whammies, over prices and cuts his fee's. We wait and yep we get his instructions sooner or later.

• 22 July 2010 10:49 AM

Neil: Maybe this is the case in your Agency - but for every property overpriced there will certainly be more than one which is not. Problem is - the public now don't know which is which... and I suggest that neither do Surveyors, or even Agents!

Answer me this - will this months' instructions become next months' price reductions? If 'Yes' - WHY?

You say "Get ahead of the curve...". Surely you then miply add fuel and credence to the self-fulfilling prophecy?

• 21 July 2010 10:59 AM

The increase in stock on the books is not due to 'lack of funding' but over-pricing. We now have to accept that the bubble is bursting again and, as Estate Agents, the only sensible course of action is to increase sales volumes by encouraging price falls.
Ignoring the elephant in the room will simply make agents look arrogant and out of touch with reality.
Get ahead of the curve - explain to vendors how prices are falling, encourage them to cut prices and you'll make the sale.

• 21 July 2010 07:57 AM

Hi supply and low demand is going to lead to house falls imo. It could be like this for the next few years with increases in taxes, cuts in spending and low mortgage approvals.

• 20 July 2010 21:12 PM

It takes a clever agent to survive in this type of market, an agent that will pick and choose the right instructions based on client motivation, let all the downsizers put their properties on for crazy prices with your competition becasue they will get bored after 3 months and withdraw the sale, whilst at the same time your competitor is chasing shadows trying to earn a fee. Hehe.

• 20 July 2010 09:17 AM

That cant be right. If your on rightmove you sell your house in a couple of weeks dont you?

• 19 July 2010 14:31 PM

Ian I wasn't intending to corporate bash, your right independants do too. But after all these years in the business, corporates staff have history of keeping to targets and boss happy at all costs, while the Independant has to survive on their actions. Over pricing idependants usually fall by the wayside, while corporates keep bailing themselves out with loans ets. I do speak from some very indepth knowledge during the 80's and 90's on both counts within other agents business's. You'd be amazed how proped up some corporates were/are! But thats another story and no I will not be enlightening further.

• 19 July 2010 13:45 PM

Sorry Ian, if Agent X values a property at £200,000 and Agent Y prices at £205,000 - Mrs Jones will go with Y. It is Human Nature, along with the "impression" that this will cover her legal fees - an absolute joy for her, or so she thinks. Honesty is the best policy. Explaining the current market and actions of other agents does help I find, but still not in all cases as some people just have £'s in their eyes! It's better to have half as many realistically sell-able properties on your books, than a large catalogue that simply accumulates - which doesn't look good if you have been marketing the same properties for months and months.

• 19 July 2010 12:50 PM

Wooden Top - Why corporate bash? It's very easy to blame corporates for over valuing but in my experience the independants are as bad if not in some instances worse. A Vendor, in most cases, will instruct the agent that will market at their expectations.

• 19 July 2010 12:03 PM

Vin: I agree with your post. Slight correction....MOST, but not all, actually instruct the agent first who "values" the highest - human nature? That is the problem and has been for
years.

• 19 July 2010 11:52 AM

We "turn down" over 50% potential new instructions after some other agents (notably corporates) are valuing in excess of the property boom peak. We are hitting our heads against a wall!

What goes in must come out, so we just wait our time and eventaully we get the instruction some months later.

You can't force a buyer to pay over the odds and if you could, they can't raise the mortgage anyway.

Are we about to see the plus 60% fall-out rate corportaes often achieved in the 90's?

• 19 July 2010 11:43 AM

maybe the eccesses of price expectation has been fuelled in the first place by a supposed experience agent advising them how much their property is worth, merely to get the intruction. MOST but not all instruct an agent is the first place because they expect them to have knowledge and experience of the local market. Evidence of what has ACTUALLY sold is most surely better than anything else. Better to let the potential client go than to let them down.

• 19 July 2010 10:06 AM