x

Carl Smales

Valuer/investor

3614 Profile Views

About Me

Optermistic

my expertise in the industry

18 years experience in property.
MNAEA

Carl's Recent Activity

I’m still charging 2%+VAT and I’m considering an increase. If you provide the correct service and the best results, the clients don’t care what the fee is. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 20 May 2022 13:23 PM

Well she sounds like some of their ‘Local Experts!’ Surely the share price can’t get any lower.

From: Carl Smales 10 March 2022 07:20 AM

Does anyone remember Northern Rock? How did that work out.

From: Carl Smales 01 March 2022 09:25 AM

Richard, you are the reason why my company was able to gain the self belief needed to charge higher fees. You showed us how the clients would be happy to pay more if they achieved more! I will always be in your debt. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 06 January 2022 09:51 AM

If you give the best service and get the best results, people are happy to pay a higher fee. No one wants to be part of your test! Prove you are worth you fee and people will be happy to pay. But that means you must be honest and act with integrity, stop over valuing to get a listing bonus and roll your sleeves up and put some hard work in to prove you are worth the extra fee (rather than just going for a quick & easy sold). Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 06 January 2022 08:13 AM

Totally agree with you Lee. If a parent can’t attend a sports day or school event, that’s down to the parent not the company they work for. Everyone has holiday days they can use, but in my experience most companies wouldn’t mind an employee nipping out to watch their child’s sports day, once a year. And the next issue is, if you think you’re hard done to as an employee, god help you when you’re working for yourself. I’ve done both and I can hand on heart say the times when I’ve come close to missing an event have been as self employed. Let’s not even get started on the fact that you can also feel like you’re working 25 hours a day, eight days a week! Lol Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 24 November 2021 08:17 AM

Well said Eve, people need to know the true facts of the ‘fantastic self employed lifestyle’ often spoken about: Cash flow, VAT, Corporation Tax, sickness cover, working 25 hours a day, eight days a week. lol If you think life is hard and unfair as an employee, just brace yourself for when you own your own business. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change it for the world personally, but it’s definitely not the ‘Rockstar’ lifestyle a lot of people try to sell to others! Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 07 October 2021 07:46 AM

Well done Austin. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 28 July 2021 10:40 AM

There’s no point worrying about something you can’t control. Since the Caveman, life has always been ‘difficulty’s mixed with opportunities.’ Now please all go and very good day, unless you’ve got other plans! Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 19 March 2021 07:33 AM

Their silence is deafening!

From: Carl Smales 16 December 2020 07:37 AM

Agent Sensible, I hope it is passed down to Agent level. Perhaps all the agents that are deliberately ‘over valuing’ constantly to gain personal bonuses will cease. We can all make a mistake but we all have ‘that agent’ in our area, who tells the vendor what they want to hear, day after day!

From: Carl Smales 15 December 2020 07:37 AM

The sooner this happens the better! But when will we get specific information on exactly what qualifications we will be required to have. It’s ok speculating what qualifications will be required but if we spend the thousands (in some companies) required to put our teams through the NAEA Property Mark qualifications and then further down the line we discover they are not the benchmark, or a watered down version is announced, it would be wasted time and money. I’m personally already level 3 qualified but as a director, will I need to be level 4. The sooner we are told the actual specific requirements, the sooner we can get our companies compliant.

From: Carl Smales 10 December 2020 07:47 AM

No mention that he has postponed (cancelled) the £1000 per employee that we were promised in January for every employee that was still in employment after being furloughed.

From: Carl Smales 06 November 2020 07:37 AM

What about making agents disclose their listing bonus, price reduction bonus, selling vendors the photo package etc? Too many agents just lie to vendors every single day, to line their own pockets, which can have a massive effect on the final sale price. There’s no wonder our industry is so untrusted and frowned upon!

From: Carl Smales 02 October 2020 07:17 AM

Now I wonder why 45% of Strikes Vendors are getting asked for a price reduction? You get what you pay for........oh wait a minute..... Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 18 September 2020 08:00 AM

Will he need to quarantine for 14 days when he gets off the plane?

From: Carl Smales 01 September 2020 07:56 AM

You get what you pay for. You get paid what you think you are worth. It’s all about ‘Mindset!’ Have a great day, unless you have other plans. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 26 August 2020 07:52 AM

If anyone is thinking of using their money to buy Purple Bricks shares as an investment.........I have some VHS video recorders to sell at a reduced price and I’m hearing of a bridge in London that might be coming up for sale......get in quick!

From: Carl Smales 17 August 2020 07:48 AM

Video Tours are a fantastic add on tool. We have being using 360 degree virtual tours for over 16 years! We have now made the move to 4K HD walk through, but it will rarely take the place of an actual, tangible viewing. Agents looking for that ‘Silver Bullet’ as always. Lol Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 19 June 2020 07:56 AM

I understand that they are trying to make money but I suspect the public perception of this could have the reverse effect. I would imaging their competitors using this again them after lockdown. I think this is a very poor decision personally.

From: Carl Smales 06 May 2020 12:30 PM

The market COULD take five years to recover from the Coronavirus crisis after POSSIBLE double-digit percentage price falls and fast-increasing repossessions. I COULD get run over by a bus in the next five years and it’s POSSIBLE that the driver will be a man. Don’t you think we all have enough issues at the moment without this type of scaremongering report! How many times are we told about ‘the beast from the East’ and we get a slightly windy two hours or ‘the worst winter storm ever’ and we get 1cm of snow that melts over night! Only bad news sells media people! Now have a great day unless you’ve got other plans.

From: Carl Smales 21 April 2020 08:24 AM

I think Vic, ‘can’t see the wood for the trees!’

From: Carl Smales 20 October 2019 09:20 AM

Also, if her first appointment is 9.30am and her second is 1pm, that’s 3.5 hours per appointment. Doing 4 appointments a day would mean she finishes at 11.30pm without building any travel time in. Lol

From: Carl Smales 19 October 2019 18:11 PM

So which qualifications will be required? We have heard all of the above for the last couple of months but we still don’t have any direction on the exact qualifications required. Will our existing NAEA automatically make us all eligible? Will there be a new ‘industry qualification?’ Anyone who has the NAEA qualifications will testify that it can take longer than two years to obtain. If the entire industry starts to obtain the qualifications now, will there be enough time to complete them before the deadline? I’ve called PropertyMark for some direction and I was told that they didn’t know. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 20 August 2019 07:43 AM

Any fool can sell a property, the real skill is getting the best price! Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 02 July 2019 08:04 AM

What a load of rubbish! I honestly wouldn’t know where to start picking this to bits and it would take forever to do so!

From: Carl Smales 15 May 2019 07:53 AM

Probably relevant for all of the wrong reasons. Didn’t they use to say that smoking was medicinal?

From: Carl Smales 09 April 2019 08:12 AM

We all need to be highlighting the fact the Purple Bricks are allowing the Australian vendors to not pay all of their fee upfront. If that happens over here how long can they sustain their business model, if the alleged allegations of they only sell 51% of there listed properties. They will not receive their current revenue on the other 49%, that has got to hurt any business.

From: Carl Smales 21 February 2019 08:10 AM

You get paid what you believe your worth! (It’s that simple) Have a great day today (unless you have other plans)

From: Carl Smales 01 February 2019 08:00 AM

A fool and their money..................

From: Carl Smales 20 December 2018 07:52 AM

Is it the 01st of April today?

From: Carl Smales 19 December 2018 08:05 AM

I just live in hope David. I doubt my suggestions would ever come to fruition but you must admit if they did, we could turn the public’s view of our industry. I just get tired of ‘the small independents’ getting the blame. (I know there are some bad ones) But the large corporates do more than their fair share to bring our industry in to distribute. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 20 December 2017 07:48 AM

And what about the ‘large corporates’ that pay ‘listing bonus,’ encouraging their staff to overvalue and give the unsuspecting people bloc ‘false hope.’ Only to be then asked to reduce their property price. (You don’t think that could be why the public miss trust us). If we have any hope at all of cleaning up our industry: Set a national percentage fee (that way you would choose the best agent and not the cheapest) Ban tie in periods ( this would force us all to ‘lift our game.’) Force agents to ‘wave their fee’ if the property sells for a specified (national percentage ) below the INITIAL listing price. (If you are an experienced agent with integrity, this shouldn’t concern you). I know some will say, ‘what about the vendor that insists on marketing their property higher than we have advised?’ We are the professionals, we should be able to explain and advise the client why this is the wrong thing to do. If we all acted in the same way and gave the same advice, perhaps the vendor would listen. Have a fantastic day, unless you have other plans.

From: Carl Smales 20 December 2017 06:48 AM

I just don’t understand the issue here! Why do Purple Bricks think they are different to any of the other agencies out there? We will all have bad reviews (no company can ever get 100% positive reviews), I don’t see all of the other companies threatening legal action. If Purple Bricks are as good as they say, why don’t they just move forward and get on with their business. Could it be they know that these revues have substance and they care more about the effect of their share price than that of the Vendors sales? I certainly don’t want to get into a ‘mud throwing’ argument but I personally do not believe that Purple Bricks can give the same service to the Vendor as some ‘High Street’ Agents for the price they charge. I do not argue that they can ‘sell property’ but I believe there is a huge difference between ‘selling a property’ and ‘getting the best price for a property.’ The problem is the some of the public don’t understand this and it’s our job to try and help educate them in the difference (rather than trying to just rubbish them). I recently had a property where the the vendors expected a sale price of £115,000. The Purple Bricks ‘local expert’ agreed with the vendor and advised them to market at that price. I attended the Market Appraisal (having lived in the are all of my life (46 years), with 22 years in property) and suggested a different price for the property. We completed on the property at £127,000 (an extra £12,000). I agree they can offer cheaper fees, but honestly believe if we can offer a better service and inturn achieve a better sale price. If you were having a triple heart bypass, would you want the cheapest surgeon or the most experienced? Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 17 November 2017 08:02 AM

The first rule of sales 'anyone can give it away!'

From: Carl Smales 09 December 2016 12:37 PM

Once again more scare stories! No one knows for sure what is going to happen. If your property drops 10%, the one your buying will probably drop 10%. Are people really going to 'not move' because of Brexit, I don't think so. I agree there will be some areas of the country effected more than others and we will always have some people that will 'watch and see what happens,' but there are too many other factors that will keep people moving. Job relocation, death, divorce, debt etc. We have a massive housing shortage and the laws of 'supply & demand' will continue, It's up to all of us on the 'frontline' of the housing market to reassure everyone if we want to move the industry forward. Have a fantastic day (unless you have other plans)!

From: Carl Smales 10 August 2016 04:38 AM

"Sales suppressed for rest of 2016" That's a great attitude to have if you want to succeed. Not! Am I the only one that is prepared to push forwards no matter what! Unfortunately people will still die (and need their property selling), people will get divorced (and need their property selling), people will get into debt (and need their property selling), people will need to relocate because of work (and need their property selling), people will need to downsize (and need their property selling), people will need to upsize (and need their property selling)! Can anyone see a pattern here? Please be solution conscience, rather than problem conscience! The media make much more money by selling negative news than they do selling positive news! Please let's all go out there and talk our industry up rather than into further recession. Happy days!

From: Carl Smales 02 August 2016 08:04 AM

Totally agree with you Trevor! People are being falsely lead down the 'we can save you lots on your fee,' rather than focusing on the more important issue of 'how much we can achieve for your property.' I had a case where the cheap fee agents told the vendors they would achieve 115k for their home. We sold the property for 141k. An extra 26k! Smoke & mirror distractions from the cheap fee brigade will not be sustainable as the public start to see they are losing out with the end result.

From: Carl Smales 22 July 2016 07:26 AM

From: Carl Smales 08 July 2016 08:47 AM

We can talk the market up or we can talk the market down, it's up to you! Have a great day (unless you have other plans)!

From: Carl Smales 07 July 2016 08:09 AM

Breaking News