Behind The Scenes Of Estate Agency

What is the mindset of an estate agent? What happens behind the scenes in estate agency? Why are estate agents sometimes pushing hard to get property for sale?

Behind the Scenes of Estate Agency

Full transcript below:

So now we’ll slightly flip the coin, this is where I couldn’t find a better picture so apologies to the agents in the room. So, this is where your estate agent is coming from. So, when he comes to see you as the homeowner as you are looking to sell, what is he thinking and what are hid angles. It’s a bit of a sad reflection of the economy and the climate that were in because commercial reality nowadays means that a lot of these estate agent employees effectively are under a lot of pressure. You’ve got key performance indicators, KPI’s, as they are commonly referred to. You’ve got daily targets, and got monthly targets, you’ve got increased competition from other agents, you’ve got increased London costings and weighting if you are part of a national firm. So, this is always sort of playing on their minds. So, their view point tends to be, I really need to get that property on the books, minimises the risk of the estate agent and of course the negotiator can go back to his boss manager at the end of the day saying boss, did a great job, got Tom’s house on the market, pat on the back for me, great tick the box for today’s targets, everyone’s happy. Or are they? Because the associated problem with again, this sort of mindset, again the agents are coming in with a sort of pre-conditioned idea, that they just have to get property on their books. They’ve got to get it no matter what and sometimes that overtakes what’s actually looking in the client’s best interests.

For example, it sometimes crops up where an estate agent would necessarily say to you, the homeowner, please do go and get planning permission, I’ll see you in six months’ time. That is potentially looking in the clients best interests, but he’s not necessarily going to say that because from his perspective, it’s going to mean a delay in marketing for him, he’s going to allow the competition through the door, you’ve got a six-month window, all his competitors could get through the door and he’ll miss out and at the end of the day as I’ve mentioned he’ll miss his target. You miss your target, boss I’m really sorry I didn’t get that job, Alex, into the office, why didn’t you get that job? Well I advised that should get planning or the guide was out. Well next time Alex you need to do this, you need to give a higher guide, you need to do this.

Again, a lot of agents now, dare I say if there are any in the room, that is accountancy led and it can distort the way they’re thinking so again it’s just something to be mindful of, they’re not all that way. As I said there is good news of course, estate agents at the end of the day they are salespeople, they are very strong willed and they are rather tenacious at the best of times and the end of the day as I’ve mentioned they would much rather be selling your property, dealing, as they like to call it, dealing on the phone, doing in the calls, then spending 20 minutes on the phone with you. That’s what their job is to do. They are on high commission so again they are incentivised, they want to do the deals, they want to be on the phone, they want to be pushing your property and not necessarily, again this is where it heads into the news, necessarily sorting out sort of client liaison and keeping their clients happy. From their perspective the quicker they can get a property under offer, it all leads o to bigger and better things of curse because they can shout about it from their websites, they can put it out on social media, they can run adverts and there’s a say in the business, boards breed board. So, if you have a for sale board it very often leads to another for sale board, it goes under offer or sold. It again the whole cycle goes around again, that’s what agents want because they just need the churn, they need the turn of properties coming on to their books.