Why are you so worried about Online Estate Agents?

June 11, 2018

Estate Agents, 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 3.5% of the market … would you be worried about them, would they keep you up at night, would you even consider changing your agency’s business model to try and combat them?

No, I don’t think you would .. you would keep an eye on them, just like you would with your other competitors ….. yet this is why I scratch my head, as I hear some fairly decent independent chains are considering offering ‘cheap few hundred pounds online package’ alongside their normal ‘high street package’ when they go out on the free val.

.. and this worries me ..

.. because by offering the very thing you are most afraid of, the online agent phenomenon will manifest itself and start to grow like a snowball – which means other agents will start their own online offering, which will mean even more people go to ‘online agents ’and eventually, online will become the norm.

(The 3.5% figure has been taken as an average market share of on the online boys (PB,Yops,Easy,Simps etc) when I have been market shares around the UK)

Christopher Watkin

I teach, guide, support, mentor, consult, counsel, partner many hundreds of UK Estate and Letting Agents in their quest to grow their estate and lettings agencies business. Old school techniques of touting, landlords wanted leaflets, ring us for a free valuation, we have sold this in your street leaflets don't work anymore. There are too many competitor agents .. meaning cheap fees are epidemic, overvaluing is almost a norm to get the stock and don’t even mention about the online/hybrid threat. So a few years ago, I set about looking around the UK and spotted that certain agents (not many mind you) in certain towns were still seen as the ‘go to person on property’, the person the newspaper editor rang up every week for a comment and I looked at what they did and they were doing some thing quite remarkable…. Only one thing but they were doing it so well .. and reaping the reward in terms of decent listings and decent fees, happy staff, decent sales pipeline and exchange income, managed lettings portfolios in the many hundreds .. but more importantly, they really enjoyed the job… they enjoyed getting up in the morning and people looked up to them Over 400 agents around the UK are on a mission to change the way our Estate and Lettings agency profession is perceived and looked upon, doing it town by town, city by city. I guide these 400 agents, teach them, mentor them and support them to be seen in a different light, to be seen as the ‘go to person for property’, actually be the ‘local property expert’ and prove it. Christopher Watkin 07950 147 572 christopher@christopherwatkin.co.uk

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