60% of homes sell through a second agent
Recently I heard this stat, I will not name the source but apparently, they heard it from Rightmove. IT CANNOT BE TRUE…can it? Whether it is true or not ( 68% of stats are made up ) it made me think, I wonder how many agents lose 60% of their vendors to a competing agent, not many I suspect but no doubt they will lose some. Having been an estate agent for most of my life and having the privilege of listing many, many homes, I lost a few, sure but never that amount. Now there will be some truth in the fact that across the land many of us will have vendors that fall out of love with us, for many reasons.
Here are some examples.
1 Not hearing from us as often as we promised, no viewings or offers and when they do hear from us we have nothing new to say about how we are helping them.
2 We ask for price reductions when we have given little feedback from the market both on and offline, and have had few viewings.
3 We fail to report back in a timely manner after viewings have taken place.
4. We quite simply allow our vendor to become unmotivated with us and the potential move. Remind ourselves, why did they place their home on the market in the first place, how are we helping them move forward. To rub salt in the wound, our competition makes attempts to talk to our clients more than we do, courting our hard-won instructions with veiled promises of a better chance to sell with them, different buyers etc, all claiming to know why their home is not selling or worse why you are not selling it for them.
Why do we allow this to happen, when we spend so much money in attempts to win the listing in the first place? Ask yourself “what is the cost to my business of generating an instruction”?
Portal fees + marketing costs + not to mention if you add in staff and premises and the list goes on. = 000’s
The answer in most cases is that is not cheap. Why do we not protect this investment with all the enthusiasm that we used to generate it. I am sure many people reading this will say
“ well we do, we don’t lose many”
If that is true then great, however, you are in the minority. Whilst we don’t talk openly that an instruction is an investment, to me it is. It is a cost liability on the business and only becomes an asset when it completes. This is language we never use openly with clients or probably with our teams (maybe we should, with both?) what is true is that if you have worked out your cost per listing to be, lets say £500 and your fee is £2000 then your ROI is awesome, should you successfully complete a sale for your vendor. So why wouldn’t you wrap them in cotton wool and love them back as much as they did when they gave you their instructions.
Over the years I I have trained many regional managers, branch managers, some owners more recently in paying attention to the ‘Vendor Love-O-meter’. Basically knowing that during the vendors time they will love you more others. Knowing this when your relationship starts is key to it being successful for both parties, after at others. Knowing this when your relationship starts is key to it being successful for both parties, after all, you already know when these events are and your vendors likely reaction to said events.
THE LOVE WILL DROP VERY QUICKLY, DONT LEAVE IT TOO LONG BEFORE YOU TAKE ACTION
Now I appreciate that not all timelines are like this, however many are, so let me explain in more detail.
Day 1, week 1 – 100-90% Vendor is madly in love with you, you are the chosen one (lets hope they haven’t chosen you because you are the cheapest!) They have placed their trust and confidence in you alone to help them move. Even posted it on their Facebook page to help you.
Day 2 – 7 week 1 – 90-80 % Vendor still is a fan, but the love has dropped very slightly because they either didn’t like the photos, or there has been a delay in getting their home online. Our viewings we promised have not yet confirmed or materialised.
Week 2 – 80% – 70% Their home is online, you have had a couple of viewings arranged, however, they view and don’t make an offer. The love stays a little higher if you get back to the vendor the day of the viewings with feedback. If this is not possible then the next morning isn’t too late. Leave it much longer than that then the love will drop dangerously close to 70%
Week 3 – 70% – 65% You may have a reasonable click through rate 10% of higher, you have a few new viewings but still no concrete offers on the table for them to consider.
Week 4 – 60% They still have faith, assuming you have kept them in touch, If you haven’t changed anything online about their marketing then you are already 2 weeks late with this. The internet faithful is still seeing the same details on the portals or your website as they saw when they were first informed it was available. Are you thinking about a price reduction now? How many potential buyers have been called and feedback gained ( whether they want to view or not, great to pass on feedback even if they don’t want to view )
Week 5 – 55% This is taking longer than they hoped and they are beginning to have some doubts about you ( massive doubts if they have not heard from you much) The very best agents will by this time realised that the way to get the love back is to do 1 key thing
BOOK A REVISIT –
In all the years dealing with 000’s of vendors this is a chicken dinner winner if you want to get that relationship back on track. MAKE THE EFFORT, protect your vendor (investment) book a suitable time, collate your feedback, viewer records, online stats, comparables you used on the first listing and GO AND SEE THEM PERSONALLY
AFTER THE REVISIT
Week 6 Love can rise back up to 75%. They have been impressed with you caring enough to revisit, they have accepted your advice and either reduced the price or agreed to consider it. At the very least they will have been complimentary with your suggestions for a reduction or how to spice up the marketing by taking new photos etc! Either way you are more likely to help this vendor by talking through the next steps. Now, if you have asked for enough, you should see your reduction achieve more viewings and offers and get this home SSTC.
Just please do not ignore the impact making the effort to revisit actually makes.
I was once told by a wise estate agent this:
“vendors most often have only one agent”
“Agents have many vendors”
“Focus on them all like you have only one”
“Otherwise someone else will”
By: Bryan Mansell bryanmansell@btinternet.com
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