BREAKING NEWS – top 5 stories 28/06/2021
WILL A £12,500 HAIRCUT BE THE NORM FOR THE £500,000 PROPERTY?
Always there is a direct reaction to any action that takes place, never more so in the property world. For a large amount of time buyers buying at £500,000, have enjoyed a SDLT saving of £15,000 thanks to the Chancellor.
As of the 1st of July that £15,000 SDLT saving will now just be just a £2,500 saving, to those who qualify – so the big elephant in the room is – will the next generation of buyers looking at a £500,000 property be offering £487,500 to factor in their ‘loss’.
This may seem unlikely, but I remember well when certain SDLT thresholds made it hard to achieve over £60,000 or £250,000 as it would incur a steep charge in SDLT.
More to the point, as this £12,500 ‘loss’ sinks in, might this mean that buyer’s not yet exchanged will be ringing the agent, to ask for a discount on their purchase price.
THEY THINK IT IS ALL OVER – IT IS NOW – VAST AMOUNT OF COMPLETIONS
Some solicitors and conveyancers were reporting triple volumes of completions on the last Friday of June, three-days ago, as happy, and not so happy buyers picked up their keys and took possession pf their new abodes.
Definitely, today talking to a number of solicitor’s there was a sense of relief and even the odd smile as though a huge cloud had been lifted, maybe the Hancock fiasco, kept the nation’s mind on other things this weekend.
DEXTERS – SHOWS HUGE GROSS PROFITS AFTER EXCEPTIONAL YEAR
In what has been the craziest housing market in my 37 years of being in the business, London centric estate agent and letting agent Dexters had made a gross profit of over £53M, in its last accounting period ending Q3, 2020. It will be interesting to see what the SDLT holiday has done to their bottom line come the end of September this year.
STARBERRY PROVIDES EXCLUSIVE DIGITAL MARKETING TO THE GUILD
One of the UK’s largest providers of retail agency website and lead generation technology, Starberry has created exclusive digital marketing packs for Members of The Guild of Property Professionals.
For anyone who has not spoken to Ben, (sorry Rus we have not yet met) I can genuinely say that he whole heatedly wants to help agents and his tech is absolutely astounding. And Starberry are not one of my clients in the day job at Proptech-PR, they just do a great job, extremely well.
The packs will focus on increasing leads, improving brand visibility, and will be designed with scalability in mind to ensure agents get the best ROI as their business grows.
Iain McKenzie, CEO of The Guild of Property Professionals, says: “Digital marketing and an online presence is growing ever more important in estate agency today. The pandemic has been a catalyst for change in the industry and agents have had to adapt their marketing strategy to grow with the needs of their customers. A digital presence is essential, and websites have become the new shop window for estate agency and more focus has been placed on having a strong digital footprint that will help agents win business in today’s digital marketplace.”
He adds that for over 20 years, Starberry’s decentralised constellation of talented creative tech gurus have worked closely with clients to create exceptional property brands, targeted KPI-driven digital marketing strategies, and bespoke enterprise-level websites with excellent return on investment.
“Having a company such as Starberry within the group means that Guild Members have exclusive access to specially-created digital marketing packs from an award-winning, global digital agency at a preferential rate. Starberry’s digital marketing services will assist Members in driving hot leads through the use of every digital channel, with highly-creative campaigns and smart detailed reporting,” says McKenzie.
He notes that there will be three tiers of digital packs available to Guild Members depending on their budget and digital marketing needs. The Starter pack would be for agents who are just getting started with digital marketing and will primarily focus on Local SEO, Google paid search and reporting. In addition to everything included in the Starter pack, the Growth pack is a more advanced digital marketing offering for agents looking for accelerated growth.
It is designed to give a true multichannel digital marketing campaign, with enhanced results through the leverage of social media, video marketing and more advanced SEO techniques. Lastly, the
Ultimate pack is a comprehensive digital marketing offering for estate agents with bigger aspirations. It is an enhanced version of the Growth pack, where every digital channel is optimised and harnessed to work hard for your business while leveraging the full power of content marketing through the additional use of email marketing and blogs.
McKenzie adds that because every estate agency has specific needs, there will be digital marketing add-ons available, which include elements such as OnPage and Technical SEO and organic social media.
According to Co-Founder and CEO of Starberry, Ben Sellers, agents should be ensuring that they are optimising their websites and digital presence for lead capturing, lead generation and lead nurturing tools. “With the right digital marketing strategy, agents will be able to generate leads from their own digital channels that are actually better quality and cost less than portals,”
Sellers comments. “Agents who have not focused on their own digital presence have become heavily reliant on portals to generate leads, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Agents can achieve phenomenal results from their own websites via digital marketing and connecting their social media channels, email, chat and portal leads together in conjunction with their CRMs, to achieve a serious marketing ROI and true lead attribution.”
McKenzie says that the new digital marketing packs will assist Guild Members to grow and develop alternative ways of generating business. “In today’s digitally driven market, more focus on digital marketing is an essential element for agents wanting to continue to thrive and develop. A strong digital presence is vital in today’s property market,” he concludes.
BOOMIN
No-one in the other property trade publications mentioned Boomin, so I thought I would. It probably is me, but I do love their adverts, especially the nun. Sometimes being the new kid on the block, gives a company a strategic advantage, establishing its new brand, new audience, and new service, rather than trying to change all of these.
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