BREAKING NEWS – top 5 stories 04/06/2021
ONE IN TEN IN ESTATE AGENCY INDUSTRY STILL ON FURLOUGH
According to analysis released today almost 20,000 of estate agency personnel are still on some form of Furlough so about 10% of the total central core property professionals. This may seem stunning as of course the residential market has been turbo charged.
WillNEE SOCIAL INFLUENCER TO HEAD UP BOOMIN YOU-TUBE CAMPAIGN
In a brave move, Boomin has utilised a social influencer with over 4-million followers to add punch and vitality to their portal offering. This has been orchestrated by Phil Lloyd Chief Marketing Officer of Boomin, and formerly the creative behind Carwow and Paddy Power.
And I think Phil is ‘on the money’ as the Influencer marketing industry in 2021 will be worth over $20BN. Utilising Social influencers who already have a huge or sympathetic, or reflective base of followers, underpins brands. Ben Francis at Gym Shark used influencers to build a company valued at over $1BN, blazing the path.
In lots of ways this is a Phil & Kirsty Vs WillNE moment, a point of inflection where a two-decade, old guard, solid Rightmove model, conceived in a pre-digital watershed world, tussles with the ultra-modern Boomin which has all the advantages of being the new way to do property, based on the UX of digital natives.
WillNE as a 25-year-old both represents the future and is part of it, in the nano-second, digital world we live in – relevance to your core market is going to be everything.
THE GUILD AIDS ITS AGENTS WITH TECH SERVICE WHICH PREDICTS WHO IS MOVING HOME
According to statistics, 76% of all new instructions come from properties that are currently not yet on the market.
This means that the estate agency Holy Grail would be the ability to determine which homeowners are likely to place their homes on the market in the next 12 months and being able to communicate with them before they do.
Iain McKenzie, CEO of The Guild of Property Professionals, says that The Guild is working on upgrading its Auto Prospecting Service (APS) to include Propensity to Move data. The data, which will be available to Guild Members through the APS from the beginning of July this year, will help agents determine which homeowners will most likely want to move in the next year.
“Having data that helps estate agents to target their prospecting to the most likely home movers will give them an advantage over their competition by putting them in front of a potential vendor before any other agent. The Propensity to Move trigger targets homeowners and the top 10% of properties across the country where there is most likely to be a move; it currently has a 79.3% success rate in predicting customers to market,” he adds.
McKenzie explains that The Guild’s Automated Prospecting Service is a complete service from prospect discovery to instruction generating that takes less than five minutes a week.
“The service is designed to target vendors and landlords who have instructed other agencies. The APS system identifies the full addresses of a competitor’s properties; it then monitors these properties in real-time and identifies points at which those vendors are most likely to be unhappy with their current agent.
The system then generates intelligent and targeted letters, each related to the vendor’s individual situation and frustrations, all at the click of a button,” he says.
“The upgrade and inclusion of the new data will mean that the APS will not just be targeting listings already on the market, but also properties that are yet to be brought to market, providing further opportunities to gain instructions and grow their market share.”
According to McKenzie, the data will provide Guild Members with the opportunity to send communications that will assist them in building a trusted relationship with potential sellers before any other agent.
“Having established a relationship with a potential vendor, it will be far easier to encourage them to choose you as their agent when it comes time to sell,” he comments. He notes that in addition to the data upgrade, a new monthly communication option will also be included as part of the new off-market trigger allowing agents to send a softer message to those properties most likely to list, such as up-to-date market insight or information showcasing your brand and expertise.
“The upgrade to the service will further enhance the tool and its business generation potential. In a competitive market, the need to secure an advantage will be increasing more important and agents with access to tools that will help them gain instructions will continue to grow and thrive,” McKenzie concludes.
HOUSE SALES ARE DECLINING IN LAST WEEKS OF MAY – AS THERE IS NOTHING TO SELL
Speaking to a large Independent agent, they reported that in their core area of the market only one instruction came to the market in the last 14-days. The same agent said that although they exchanged on six properties last Friday, the only agreed one sale that week.
We asked how they saw the rest of the year, and they said it will be very much hand to mouth, ‘we can sell everything we get, though average condition properties are now sticking, but soon we hit holiday season and it will anyone’s guess what the market does in September, especially as the SDLT holiday will be over for everyone’.
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