Estate Agent Talk
Business Development – It isn’t always about Big Budgets!
Estate Agency (Sales) is a ‘transactional business’ ie an agent wins the instruction, sells their clients property and the client moves on…one engagement and one transaction – there is no repeat buying of your services every week, every month or even every year. There will always be an exception whereby the same client asks you…
Is a Smart Home worth more money?
Being Smart brings to mind a whole host of thoughts… Do you mean being sensible, is it being good at using a Smart Mobile Phone or does it refer to what you control remotely? Well for this blog we will take a look at all three of these things by way of Smart Technology for…
Christopher Walkey
Agents: Do Your Competitor Agents Hate You?
Successful estate and letting agents inexorably and unavoidably draw attention to themselves. These estate and letting agents work really hard, things seem to happen, get done when they put their mind to it, everyone talks about them and people take notice. But on the darker side, have you noticed though, that whenever someone does well…
Christopher Watkin
Worried about your 2016 targets?
When I worked in estate/letting agency, on the front line, I hated the first day back after New Year, everything was reset to zero, all the numbers… just like pressing that button on your cars odometer to get it back to zero (The odometer is the display that indicates distance travelled by a car …..
Christopher Watkin
A quick look back over 2015
As 2015 comes to an end I thought it might be interesting to just look back at some items of news that stood out during the year for those of us involved in the Property Industry, if anyone has anymore to add please do so in the reply section. Month by month 2015 January. Analysts…
Allen Walkey
Online Estate Agents revealing nearly all…
Lots of news in the air towards Online Estate Agents and many new names are entering the industry. Are they rivaling traditional estate agency or are they simply adding a new dimension to how people buy/sell/rent property in the UK? We contacted a selection of Online Estate Agency concepts via Twitter and asked them some…
Christopher Walkey
2016 – Motivated Vendors… Yes Please!
Here’s the Estate Agents perfect scenario – every vendor is motivated to sell and will sell. Nothing wrong with that – but is it reality or is it a happy valley dream? What proportion of your stock is taken up by unmotivated vendors? Understanding your clients motivation to sell is just one part of the…
Property – Never an ‘Elephant in the room’.
Over the years I have been fortunate enough to participate in many amusing and inspiring debates. I have also had the misfortune of attending some work meetings that were simply uninteresting and dull. So the ‘anaesthetic’ of choice for those tedious times was to ‘throw’ into the conversation something about Politics – usually a guaranteed…
The Fall and Rise of Online Agents
Ok, can I ask you a question … … if a competitor estate or letting agent in your town, that had been going for a couple of years had say 2.5% of the market … would you be worried about them, would they keep you up at night, would you even consider changing your agency’s…
Christopher Watkin
Are you guilty of any of these? Estate Agency Jargon.
While researching this article I found a few dictionary definitions of jargon that stood out. Special words and phrases which are used by particular groups of people, especially in their work and industry. Often not understood by ‘outsiders.’ Unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing. Utter shite spouted by someone who doesn’t have the brains or…
Japanese Knotweed – Buyer Beware.
Japanese Knotweed is an invasive plant and was first discovered by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg during the 18th century. By the twentieth century it became apparent that Japanese Knotweed is an invasive plant and needs to be dealt with. There are different types of solutions for treating or eradicating Japanese Knotweed from herbicide treatment…
All Blacks – What can we learn from them?
Now that several weeks have passed since their emphatic win in this year’s rugby World Cup final, I have no doubt that the analysis, the questions and the head scratching will continue for months, if not years. Although some people will overthink the strategy and reflect on their performance the simple answer is that New…
FREE 1hr Training Video on getting more landlords for a lettings agency
On the 3rd of July 2015, 35 letting and estate agents came together in the East Midlands to learn how to attract landlords to their letting agency. Please find nearly one hour’s worth of training videos on that very subject of attracting landlords to a lettings agency. .. no sales .. no hard sell …..
Christopher Watkin
Opening a second or third office? – read this first!
Why add a new office, hire new people, increase the footprint of your company? Is it to please the shareholders? Or your clients? Vanity? Peacock like? Your name across another door? .. In Lights? Investment costs money and it wants a return. But your clients don’t care about that. Use capital wisely, because sooner or later,…
Christopher Watkin
Why do agents leave their dry wipe target boards on display in the office?
Over the last few weeks, I have been in London visiting agents … and there is one thing I have noticed that I find very very strange. On public display in a lot of these offices, for all the world to see …. a dry wipe board. No ordinary dry wipe board .. ooo no…
Christopher Watkin