One of estate agency’s fundamental tasks is to secure the highest price that an able purchaser will pay for your property in a given market. In an ideal world, we would have a hot-line to The National Lottery who would feed us with a regular supply of winners prepared to pay ridiculous prices for modest properties. Unlikely, but we’re working on it!
In the real world, most estate agents operate using certain procedures and protocols that have been employed for decades, if not centuries. In addition to the somewhat archaic system of property transfer we have on the Isle of Man, there are traditional elements of the sales process that have become “the norm”.
Examples of these include the way in which viewings are conducted and how buyers and sellers are treated, both of which could do with a concerted makeover. Indeed, one of the areas of this business I have tried to work on is service, that’s service to our clients, buyers and sellers alike. We not infallible, but we are making serious inroads into this and changing how we work for the benefit of those we work for. Added to this, the most obvious example is the way in which prices are maximised. As an industry, estate agents have facilitated a culture of offers below the asking price, which is surely counterproductive to the seller’s primary objective. But it’s the accepted norm isn’t it? It’s what we all understand happens. And crucially it affects our thought process when it comes to an asking/list price. How many times have we heard the words, ‘if we ask a little more we can always come down a bit’?
So promoting offers below the asking price encourages sellers to quote ambitious prices in order to accommodate low offers, which in itself can reduce the number of viewings. Why would you knowingly embark on the sale of your home now you know this? Offers below the asking price should be regarded as a failure, not a success. Our reputation thrives best, not on a culture of satisfied clients, but of delighted ones, and we find this is achieved when we submit offers in excess of the asking price. (In fact, around 17% of our offers exceed the asking price!)
There are several ways of achieving this, using well-proven and highly strategic marketing initiatives. It would certainly be un-commercial of us to detail these here, but when the time comes for you to sell, we recommend you question your agent as to strategy behind “quoting an asking price” and how they will methodically achieve the very highest price the market will pay. Why not contact us for bespoke advice and we’ll let you in to a secret or two!
Tim Groves
Black Grace Cowley
(01624) 645552
tim@blackgracecowley.com
