Is your agent ready for business?

- Mon 19 May 2014

The property market is improving and to make the most of it you have to ensure you employ the best agent to maximise your chance of selling for the right price. But how do you know which is the best agent? Is it the one who quotes he can sell your property for the highest price? That is rarely correct, so make sure you get the agents you chose to give you valuations to show you their comparable evidence of recently sold properties at their recently sold prices so you can see for yourself you are not falling foul of an agent ambitiously pricing your property just to try to win your instructions. Is the best agent the one who quotes the cheapest fee? Again very rarely correct. You may have seen the recent TV program about Estate Agents on BBC2. Bradleys were featured in that series and it very clearly showed the difference between an agent that goes the extra mile to find a buyer and get the best price and the agent that lists instructions on the portals and waits to see if the phone will ring. When choosing an agent make sure they have good regional coverage so they will be able to attract a large number of buyers. Single office firms in one location just cannot cast their net wide enough. Bradleys currently have just short of 20,000 active applicants looking to buy or rent in Devon, Cornwall and Somerset with a further 90,000 that have elected to receive our weekly updates to stay in touch with the market. Before instructing an agent ask them how many genuine live applicants they will be able to contact to try to find you a buyer.


A recent example of the power of modern marketing is Bradleys Helston are offering for sale Tresidder, a 4 bedroom detached art deco home situated at Mullion with spectacular sea views. Tresidder had a presenter led video as part of our marketing and when this property was emailed out, one of the recipients was someone living in Hong Kong who was travelling to the UK to buy a cliff top property. Upon receipt of the emailed details which contained the link to the video the applicant was interested and made an appointment to view. Bradleys collected the applicant from Newquay airport and returned him after the viewing.


Estate agency is a changing game and only the fit will keep up. Technology is becoming a larger part of marketing and communication. To accommodate our customers’ needs Bradleys now have a Customer Services Department which currently responds to approximately 3,000 email enquiries up to 10.00 at night to ensure the buyers are dealt with quickly and get the information they need. Nothing is more important than answering the telephone, so Bradleys Customer Services will answer an office’s phone if all of the agents in the office are busy, so again, nothing gets missed.


The easiest and quickest way to see who is the right agent to trust with the sale of your property however, is to go to www.allagents.co.uk which is the largest review site for Estate Agents in the UK to see how your chosen agent is ranked based on customer feedback from previous customers. For full details of Bradleys comprehensive services please visit www.bradleys-estate-agents.co.uk    

 

Francis Marshall - Bradleys Managing Director

Francis Marshall
Bradleys Managing Director