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Nigel Adams

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my expertise in the industry

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This is market share by volume. By value they are insignificant. We charge less than 1% but still make £4,000 on average for every sale, not the £995 PB do. The high end agents are making way more per deal. If you pay peanuts you get......

From: Nigel Adams 07 October 2020 08:46 AM

"30 years experience".......so what you really mean is that he is old. A non story.

From: Nigel Adams 06 October 2020 10:03 AM

We've been really busy and I'm very happy with the measured way that the government are acting. We need to start getting the country and economy going again while using common sense to keep safe. I feel they have got the balance just right.

From: Nigel Adams 13 May 2020 15:53 PM

The rules are crystal clear from central government and have nothing to do with the local concil. His office should not be open. He should not be viewing empty properties.

From: Nigel Adams 06 May 2020 12:49 PM

£30m is just £37,000 per branch. Ouch.

From: Nigel Adams 30 April 2020 12:10 PM

This article is disingeneous and bordering on the hysterical. The clear downside not mentioned in this piece is to cut off the biggest (and most cost-effective looking at our figures) souce of buyer leads. I'm happy if other agents quit as it will give a me a clear competitive advantage coming out the other side.

From: Nigel Adams 20 April 2020 09:24 AM

I'm happy with Rightmove. They provide a far superior stream of buyers than other portals and their cost per buyer is also lower. They have offered me a large reduction at present and didn't put is any weasal terms like Zoopla who offered to reduce their fee if I signed up for a lock-in period and also agreed not to use RM. This was underhand and to be honest they had a real nerve trying to interfere in who I advertise with. I gave Zoopla one months notice last month and as of today will no longer be advertising with them. It is Zoopla that are the villains in this piece. The leads we did get from them were duplicates of buyers that would have come from RM - I know because I called a group of them and 9 out of 10 were also looking on RM. When we come out the other side I shan't be going back to them

From: Nigel Adams 17 April 2020 12:32 PM

Sounds like it is just a rebranded regional estate agent that will struggle to grow outside of its core area due to the high cost of marketing. Hardly a revolution!

From: Nigel Adams 18 October 2019 10:06 AM

Terrible customer service. Almost impossible to find out chain details. Disorganised telephone systems that send you to the wrong person in the wrong department. Chains falling through because they were never sound in the first place or were just left with no follow up. Yet somehow their reviews are good. The review system is a total joke with big companies like this fixing the system.

From: Nigel Adams 26 September 2019 09:24 AM

I hate to break the bad news to the founders of this business but there is a very big difference between reams of undigested information, which is what this report gives, and useful insight of where to pitch a property's price based upon an understanding of what's importatnt in the data and a feel for the market, which is what a good estate agent provides.

From: Nigel Adams 06 August 2019 09:19 AM

Agreed Richard. I started BigBlackHen.com on Exmoor March the 14th 2005. Homeweb were before us in Devon. We are now in Hertfordshire after I moved up here in 2010. I remember Red Homes as you had the franchise model. We were all way before this agent. And as we're still going don't need anyone to tell us that our models work.

From: Nigel Adams 07 November 2018 14:28 PM

Simon, I take your point in many cases as some independent chains are very similar in look and feel to the larger national ones. But the smaller newer breed of local independent agents that we are seeing emerge who have innovated in terms of service offering certainly are distinguishable and certainly in this part of Hertfordshire have taken significant market share over recent years. The key is to diffenrentiate, especially on service offering, but also in terms of promoting events and other businesses in the local area. I still hold that being independent and "owner occupier" are significant draws.

From: Nigel Adams 12 October 2018 08:59 AM

Like in the kid's game he is getting warmer, but clearly has not worked out what this new magical model will look like. It is probably the most important financial decicion of people's lives and is very emotionally driven so no surprises that very high quality personal service needs to be at its core. People buy from people - so hiring and motivating first rate people is essential. No surprises that this often comes from small businesses run by their owners. But the TV giants forget that many sellers are still highly motivated by the words "local" and "independent". This is not something that the national brands will be able to realistically offer - however many "local property experts they hire". And he has alreadfy identified that the huge sums being spent on TV advertising and buying up Google adwords pretending to be "local" in every town in the UK isn't sustainable, especially when compared to the low cost of acquistion that comes from generating word-of-mouth by building a great local reputation - and through local presence, especially boards (which are still amazingly effective). Incidentally, reputation won't be built by constantly being pulled up by the advertising Standards Authority for telling lies in your advertising. Or by paying lip service to sales chasing because there is no motivation to solve the inevitable problems that arise because your fee has already been paid. Or by fixing the big review sites to present an unrealistic picture of the customer experience. It will be interesting to see what happens when the next big downturn comes and you can't just expect a Rightmove listing to get you a sale. My bet will be on small local independent businesses with excellent reputations for delivering above and beyond. If you are not delivering that then I think you'll get found out - and having a High Street office, or not - is simply not relevant if you haven't got this as your foundation.

From: Nigel Adams 11 October 2018 10:16 AM

They are going to end up going the same way as House of Fraser and, despite it being a different sector, for very similar reasons. How on earth did they allow themselves to rack up so much debt? If a local independent operated like this they would go bust at the first sign of the next downturn. All agents know you need petrol in the tank for the next time the market crashes and Countrywide's is less than empty!

From: Nigel Adams 02 August 2018 12:25 PM

Rightmove cost per quality lead is still much better than any other source. They would destroy their business model if they "became an online agent" so this will never happen. Agents need to stop complaining and differentiate on service, which will be the new battlefield in our industry. Why? because it is the thing that customer's actually want.

From: Nigel Adams 31 July 2018 11:58 AM

Yes, and pigs might fly.

From: Nigel Adams 16 July 2018 17:38 PM

Purple Bricks present themselves as whiter than white but there is no doubt that their advertising is highly misleading. I'm convinced that they are massaging their poor reviews too as if you Google "bad reviews Purple Bricks" and read what consumers say you can tell that everything is not as they present it. The world of estate agency is certainly changing - we know as one of the first local online estate agents to advertise on Rightmove way back in 2005 - but that is not excuse for perpetuating some of the dodgy business practices and dubious claims that only serve to damage the reputation of our industry. They should clean up their act rather than behaving like an estate agent equivalent of Wonga. Nigel Adams. Managing Director. BigBlackHen.com

From: Nigel Adams 02 March 2017 11:16 AM

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