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Stephen Lewis
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Hi Simon, In reference to... "the fact remains that any property seller who thinks they can save their agency fee by doing it themselves is mistaken, at least on average and this is of course about playing a numbers game. " and "on average you get more money when you use an agent and on average the more you pay them the more money you get" I'm willing to be convinced if you are willing to provide evidence to support this claim. But so far you haven't provided any. And as I stated earlier, if this claim were true then agents would flipping bargain properties from private sellers for quick profits. But I don't see any evidence of that either. "It has little to do with price data either, it has everything to do with dealing with the interest in a property in a dispassionate unemotional way because as an agent that's your job. " Your comments regarding price being a secondary consideration suggest to me that that you might not have personal experience of buying property yourself. You have to be in the game with your own money to understand the forces behind it.
From:
Stephen Lewis
01 August 2015 04:45 AM
"the sellers on these sites will get less money and more headaches than sellers who use agents" There is an expression used in story telling....show, don't tell. If you are so confident of your abilities, why do you need customers like me? You can be the seller. You can purchase your own portfolio of "bargains" off the internet and then resell them two months later (unaltered) using your agency skills to achieve an immediate short term profit? PurpleBricks provides the services of a local agent. He's very good and filters out the tyre kickers. I don't pay him £5k. But not all agents are like that. A friend of a friend has a property for sale. She has had 5 viewings and 5 failures simply because the property was never suitable for their requirements (can't fit their caravan on the lawn or doesn't like the area...duh, so why view it??). Incompetent agents bringing unsuitable clients can cause stress and disappointment. On top of that, the flat rate agency commission structure is an incentive for the agent to achieve monthly volume sales rather than the best price for a particular customer. However the major mistake you're making is in thinking that there is a negotiation. There isn't. Negotiation is a valid tool when information revealing price discovery is hidden to buyers and sellers. That information was once held exclusively by agents. This is now drifting to anyone with a keyboard and more information is being delivered each year (crime stats and traffic density being the latest). Yes, there is still an older non-keyboard customer out there but they will dwindle over time as they enter the care homes. Price discovery is fluid. The properties considered to be bargains will attract much interest resulting in many offers. This will raise their price. Over priced properties with no interest will either reduce their price to find a market or wait for the 1 in a 1,000 buyers who has no alternative option but to buy it due to external (family, job, etc.) or sentimental reasons. I'll be honest here, one of the main negotiation tools used by agents has been....wait for it....LYING. For example, claiming that there are other interested parties in the property when they are just made up. Both buyers and sellers will have to harden themselves to the disappointments in the process. Agents often act as a buffer of bad news. People will get used to taking these knocks. They've adjusted to every other market that has moved online, particularly job hunting. There will always be a client base for customers at the top end of the market. In summary, the internet makes any market move quicker because it speeds up the price discovery process. Today there are a dozen online only agents. By 2020 there could be 50 to 100. I could develop my own online agency service in a week. But Google could eliminate all of them in one fell swoop by introducing their own agency tool. There's no reason why every property cannot be up for sale 24/7, 12 months of the year waiting for the big whopper on the end of the line to bite the hook. A middle man is worth the investment when he has access to knowledge that the rest of the market doesn't have. With the exception of foreign investors buying up central London, residential property isn't one of those markets.
From:
Stephen Lewis
31 July 2015 11:55 AM
I'm just a seller but this is my take on property portals..... Rightmove is simply a better design than Zoopla from a user experience. Zoopla is intrusive. To display and estimate the value of the owner's property without their prior consent is considered a breach of privacy by many people. Zoopla's estimates are calculated incorrectly. They are based upon the property. But the price a house sells at is based upon both the property....and the circumstances of the owner. Zoopla ignore this second criteria in their calculations. Email alerts.....serious buyers want to know what's been added to the market NOW and they want to be told rather than have to hunt them for themselves. Once again Rightmove wins at this facility. Sold Subject To Contract and Under Offer signs....utterly meaningless terms. No purchase is guaranteed until contracts are exchanged. Up until then buyers can pull out on a whim. Agents should advise their sellers to keep their properties on the market for further viewings and offers right up until the day of exchange of contracts. The terms should be removed from property listings. The primary reason for property listings is price discovery. Internet portals providing virtual viewings have improved the accuracy and speed of price discovery. An improved property value calculator tool with an accuracy of 1-2% would transform the market. One way to achieve this might be to allow online viewers to rate property listings in different categories such as location, condition, features etc. Most viewers of online portals are not buying or selling. They just want to know how far or behind the market they are. But they are happy to entertain themselves rating other people's properties. Eventually, property listings will be free or very close to free. Creating a property website is technically easy with a modern CMS. Promotion is harder but Google local search and maps makes every home a potential top search page listing. The agent will just be hired by the seller to show buyers around the property, probably listed as independents on Checktrade . Some agents will become advice consultants. The rest will find something else to do with their lives.
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Stephen Lewis
30 July 2015 15:20 PM
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Stephen's Recent Activity
From: Stephen Lewis
01 August 2015 04:45 AM
From: Stephen Lewis
31 July 2015 11:55 AM
From: Stephen Lewis
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