Foxtons selling houses for 0% commission in SW London

London Estate Agency Foxtons have announced that they will charge 0% commission on house sales for people using their new South London branches in Streatham and Willesden Green reported Negotiator Magazine today.

The offer is open to the first 200 sellers in each of the branches and the houses for sale in Streatham must be sold before 4th December 2010.

Earlier this year the Guardian reported that the Agency best known for its branded Minis experienced a profit slump of 70% with debts of nearly £350m due to the housing market.

So does this bold move opening two new offices signify a confidence in the South London Housing market?

So, can you spot any foxtons houses for sale in Streatham at The Big Property List?

Footnote: You have to hand it to the online marketing department at Foxtons – whilst researching this article I Googled ‘Streatham’ and their website features at second position in Google Spain and page 1 for google.co.uk – just behind wikipedia!  Good work boys! 
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Online Marketing for Estate Agents: Pay per Click

Estate Agency is changing.  The world is changing.  No matter what your stance or perspective you can’t disagree with this basic premise.

However for those at the forefront of the online migration the pace may seem faster than to those Estate Agents whose business model has remained more or less the same for the last 10 years.  For those bringing up the rear the greatest changes will be the use of an online property portal to reach buyers – probably Rightmove and no other – and the use of email instead of fax and post.

I sat in an Estate Agent’s office a few months ago and asked what a secretary was doing – she was entering property details in triplicate – to three seperate systems.  It doesn’t take A level maths to work out that a 66% time saving could be made by the introduction of a smarter system.

One of the simplest online advertising tools for an Estate Agent that doesn’t want to rely solely on Rightmove for it’s online marketing is Pay Per Click.

Essentially Pay Per Click (PPC) is a form of online advertising where you set a budget of say £20/day and your advert is displayed all over the internet – normally alongside search results (for example in Google) and on other websites that relate to your subject.  When a user clicks on your advert and is redirected to your website, you pay for that click.  Hence the name Pay Per Click.

Google Pay Per click advertising is displayed above and beside 'natural' search results in a Google search

The most favoured system is Google Adwords – a very clever system which a new user could set up and use in just a few hours, but that has the tools and features that an advanced user requires.

In our next article in this series we’ll show you how to set up a basic Google Adwords Pay Per Click online advertising campaign in a few simple steps.

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Property & the Internet: a history of unfulfilled potential…

Ever since the property industry made its first bold steps online, the possibilities offered have been a gift for sellers and buyers alike.  From basic search to widgets, from Google Maps integration to social media engagement, pioneers in the property world have seized upon digital developments to reap the benefits of their “revolutionary” vision.   But how much of this has truly been revolutionary?

Every so often, we’re promised a real game-changer, but in almost all cases the changes are superficial and the game seems to stay the same.  Recently, there’s been a lot of excitement over both Google and Tesco venturing into the industry.  Again, we were led to believe this would herald a new era in online property sales.   Again, we were disappointed.

For as long as the big players in the property world (old and new) invest their time and money into window dressing, we will always fail to address the issues that really need our attention: significantly reducing the stress and hassle people experience when buying a home, making the whole process quicker and easier, restoring trust in estate agents, dragging intimidating property auctions into the 21st century, and ending gazumping forever.

These issues cut to the heart of what matters to buyers. They should also make us question how we, as an industry, use the Internet not to simply promote properties but also to close the deal.

This is what I had in mind when I created Click to Purchase – a transactional platform that enables people to buy property online at the click of a button or via real-time auction.  There’s no excessive haggling or negotiating.  No recurrent visits to the agent’s office.  No back room deals after an offer has been placed.  As soon as a bid is accepted, the contract is immediately exchanged online. It’s like e-commerce for property.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I was told “no-one will ever buy property online”.  But the platform has already been active in the commercial market for several months.  During this time, it has generated sales in excess of £15 million and thrived despite the financial squeeze.  There is obviously a hunger for this kind of innovation from buyers and I’m now hoping for this success to be shared across the residential market.

Very soon, all estate agents across the UK will have the option to invite their customers to buy via Click to Purchase.  Now, I believe this really is something special.  A game-changer.  Dare I say, revolutionary?

Author Biography: Neil Singer

Neil Singer has worked in the commercial property industry for over 25 years. In recent years he has been inspired by the power of the Internet and its use in business.  His passion for applying new technologies to traditional processes led him to create the Click to Purchase platform. Please visit the Click to Purchase website (http://clicktopurchase.com) and follow him on Twitter. 
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Direct marketing approach from Tesco Estate Agency business isold.com

Having sold a house recently it was interesting to see the kind of direct marketing that a For Sale sign attracts – having erected both a private For Sale sign and one from The Best Estate Agent in Reading.

Having displayed a mobile number on the Private Board, the first approach was by text message:

We would like to make you a FREE cash offer for your property.  If you are interested please visit (website)

And there was me expecting to pay for offers from people who’d never been inside the house!

Most of the Estate Agents who valued the property but that I didn’t use wrote often to remind me that they were still there, should I need their assistance.  A good bunch in general and I could have selected any one of 3 that I liked (see my previous article on how to choose the best estate agent) so I didn’t mind at all hearing from them.

The approach that intrigued me the most was a postcard from ‘isold.com’, the ‘Online Estate Agency’ (my words), set up as a partnership between Spicerhaart and Tesco this spring.

As you can see the card was posted and addressed to’The Homeowner’ and printed and signed with a handwriting font to give the personal touch.

This week, the house having been under offer for the past three, I found another letter on the mat, this time in an envelope but still addressed to the homeowner.

Actually this is quite a strong proposition from spicerhaart, and the approach gives us some insight into isold’s intentions.  I’ve said for a while that I believe what I term ‘online estate agency’ will be the biggest growth area in Estate Agency and will take more business from ‘traditional’ high street agencies than the For Sale by Owner model offered by websites such as Sarah Beeny’s Tepilo.  Not that the for Sale by Owner model is flawed, just that many people, in my experience, are not ready to fully ‘go it alone’ even if they question the traditional method.

The winning proposition that Online Estate Agency offers is the low fees, due to the lack of High Street office, but with the comfort of having a professional Valuer/ Negotiator to value the house, draw up floor plans and support you through the process.  That and the ability to put your advert on the Estate Agent only portals like Rightmove and Primelocation – which do not accept listings from individuals or private property sales websites.

Looking at the isold.com website they have launched in only three UK cities, Reading, Bristol and York.  Since the announcement in spring 2010 the business has received little media coverage however and most articles refer to Tesco’s last attempt at entering the property market (in 2007) which ended when Agents and Portals refused to list their adverts with the Supermarket and the business was challenged by the OFT on whether they had become an Estate Agent.

Consumer reactions to the latest offering  (such as those posted under this York Press article) vary from a bit of estate agent bashing and hopes for reduced selling fees to concerns over Tesco’s apparant monopoly over everything.

The original Tesco proposition was sold to Spicerhaart in 2007, who now seem to be running the business (isold.com is registered at the spicerhaart HQ in Colchester) and despite the prominent Tesco branding on direct marketing and the isold.com website I challenge you to find the isold page on Tesco.com without using google.

So this does seem to be a softly softly approach this time around, perhaps looking to build franchises in areas that are void of a Spicerhaart office. One assumes that the Tesco involvement is mainly the use of the brand and direct marketing to Clubcard members.  But we’ll see…

What do you think?  Leave your comments below… 
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We are officially a Top 100 Real Estate Blog – Technorati

We were really pleased this week to discover that we’ve  made it in to Technorati’s top 100 Real Estate blogs – worldwide! As the name suggests Technorati is the Web’s leading  authority for blogs and attaining the upper ranks is no mean feat in the today’s rich blogosphere.

Thebigpropertylist.co.uk blog started out on Blogger nearly two years ago and has gone from strength to strength, attracting guest writers from all over the property blogosphere such as Ollie Cornes, professional Landlord and owner of Landlord software company Juicy Property and Sharon Crossland, tenancy expert and blogger of Leasehold Life.

Visitor numbers and contributions have continued to rise on a weekly basis and we have been really pleased by the positive and supportive emails we’ve received from readers in that time.

Our aim is to continue to bring you the latest UK property news as well as property articles on a range of useful and entertaining subjects.  We will shortly be moving the blog to the prettier design that we employ on the main website as the property portal is finally getting close to launch (horaah!).  Originally planned to be a ‘For Sale by Owner’ property sales portal thebigpropertylist.co.uk will offer an altogether different type of property search. The website has been delayed whilst we surveyed the market (especially in the wake of the Tepilo launch and while we finished other projects) and planned our next move.  So, you will just have to wait and see what the final site brings!

In celebration of making it to the top 100 Real Estate blogs and as a nod in the direction of our fellow property keyboard tappers, here’s a list of our favourite property blogs elesewhere on the web:

• Housing Dabble -  Property Marketing, Brand Building and Social Media from Ben Harris
• Agent’s Diary The weary musings of a time-served estate agent (realtor) somewhere in the UK
• Modern Estate Agent -  Brain food for the modern estate agent
• Facts Not Headlines -  Kate Faulkner, author of Which? property books and consultant to the industry tells the REAL stories in the property market
• Landlord Law Blog – Tessa Shepperson, a solicitor and specialist in residential landlord and tenant law

Happy reading… 
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How to choose an Estate Agent

Finding the right estate agent can be a daunting task.  After all you’re entrusting them with the sale of your largest assest and the difference between a good one and a bad one could be weeks of stress and thousands of pounds.

Choosing an Esatte Agent can be tricky

If you’ve recently bought a house then you’ll have an insight into how the local agents treated you as a potential buyer and what they did that you liked and what you didn’t.

It’s a bit like recruitment in many ways – you know they roughly fit the bill, you interview them and some you will instantly like or dislike and you will have some in the middle that are hard to differentiate – after all they all give roughly the same patter and attempt to tell you what they think you want to hear.

So how do you assess them?

Start by getting clear on your needs and the qualities that you want in the person/ company that you want to work with.  What are your aims?  A fast sale, the highest price, a personal service, low fees, a local agent, a person you trust?  If you can order this list in priority descent then you have a system by which to rate your potential agents.

Six areas we feel are important are listed below:

Property Valuation

You will get a range of valuations from different agents and the most important thing for me is that a valuation is realistic and demonstrable.  There’s no point an agent feeding your dreams of a huge profit if the price is unrealistic and will not sell.  Likewise a low price will likely achieve a quicker sale but if one of your aims is to make a capital gain then this does not serve your purpose.  Most agents will bring comparable properties that are either on the market now (so you know what the competition is) and what has been recently sold, by them and by other agents in the area.

Estate Agents’ Fees

These days the typical fee is around 2% and have been known to go as low as 1% and up to 3%.  Some agents work on a set fee, which you could argue removes the incentive for them to achieve the best price, or you could argue that it stops them favouring one property over another.  I’m a firm believer that you get what you pay for – but it doesn’t necessarily follow that the most expensive is the best – you have to assess value.

Marketing

Broadly speaking estate agents all do similar things to market properties, but the details matter.  Look at some agents’ brochures and there will be only one photo, look at others and there will be myriad, all taken with care and attention to detail to show off the features of your house.  A badly taken picture can make the largest, sunniest room look dingy and pokey.  The reverse is also true.

Consider where you’ve been looking for properties – does your prospective agent advertise there?  The local paper, Rightmove (of course!), Primelocation, what does their own website look like?  Is it easy to find (search for ‘properties for sale in …” or ‘estate agents in…..’ on google – are they on the top half of the first page?  If not, who is?

Big Office vs Small Office

A small agency may offer a more personal service – a single point of contact and the knowledge that your property is not likely to get lost under a heap of instructions.  However, a larger agency will have more resources under its belt, for making calls to prospective buyers, sending out mailing lists and advertising in the local papers.  A big office will more likely attract more buyers in to register – but then the overhead cost of that office has to come from somewhere – your fees!  Weigh up what is more improtant to you.

Personality

For me the most important aspect.  Do you like the agent as a person, do you trust them and believe they can sell your house, and are they the sort of person you want to deal with?  If you like them then its likely others will as well, and as the old adge goes: ‘people buy people not products’.

Recommendations

After all this consideration you can get an idea for what it might be like to work with the estate agents you’ve been considering – but you can get an even clearer picture of what this is like by speaking to people who have had the experience.  A personal recommendation goes a long way and likewise a negative recommendation can save a lot of pain.  Ask friends and family in the area what there experience has been of local estate agents – or even knock on a door displaying a sign, why not!

In the end you have to make a decision based on the sum of these factors and your ‘gut feeling’.  Keeping a checklist of things you want in an agent and a list of services that are important to you should make this process much easier – also keep notes on each agant so afterwards you can sit down with a cup of tea and review what they said, how much they valued the house at and any other pertinent advice or information they offered.

Whoever you choose, giving clear instructions and explaining your aims from the start will  help the relationship from start to finish. 
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New Media, marcomms and the interactive audience

 My experience of blogging is that most blog readers are bloggers themselves and that unlike the traditional print media where a small number of writers push content out to the many, the blogging world is an interactive one in which anyone can be involved in the dicussion by creating their own content and discussing and commenting on content created by others.

And that is why many brands are so frightened of social media – on their websites they can close and moderate comments in an effort to control what is said about them and their policy dictates whether this ranges from the massaging of messages or a full on communist-state-ministry-of-information style policy.

However, modern social media communication mediums like twitter and facebook make it very hard to control what is being said about your brand and many corporates retain social media gurus to monitor, massage and respond to comments about a brand.  Indeed a social media insider that I met recently said that she felt many PR firms were still struggling to grasp this new media marcomms opportunity.

So if you have your own property blog, what is your policy on moderating comments?  I cut out any references to ‘blue, diamond-shaped performance enhancing drugs’ or adult related content as well as blatant spam, but I don’t mind link dropping where the writer has made an effort to read my article and contribute to the discussion.  But what about where the views of the commenter clash with not only the views of the author but but the message being promoted by the brand in question?

Two examples I have come into contact with recently are my comments on two property blogs.  Firstly the excellent Housing Dabble blog written by Ben Harris in a post where he was promoting  socail media functionality for PropertyADD estate agency software.  I commented that were I an estate agent I wouldn’t bother with social media but would use my efforts/ budget to improve the core business – i.e. customer service, local reputation, finding buyers and sellers, local networking.  My caveat to this would be that this approach would depend on location and scale – i.e. a small 1 branch independant in Truro is less likely to benefit from twitter as a national agency with business in the major cities.

Although diagreeing with my views, Ben published the comments immediately and went on to discuss the subject, putting forward his own views and asserting that he ‘know(s) of a number of agents that are(using social media) and seeing great results from their efforts in comparison to other activity they were doing.’

My second example is on another property blog where, in response to an article written by Peter Bolton King, Chief Executive, National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA), I commented that the 1808 Coalition was a self-interested lobby group…using FTBs as a sympathy issue to further their cause of driving up prices and transaction volumes in the property market and set out my reasons for my view.  Two days later my comments have yet to be approved and I await with interest to see if they will as they are clearly in conflict with the intention of the article – namely engendering support for the 1808 lobby group.

So everyone has a differing policy towards interation with their content and management of their brand.  My personal opinion is that the evolving participatory nature of media is good for the consumer as we have more information, more views to consider and less ‘managed messages’ to decipher when making decisions or looking for information about a brand or product.  I for one now judge a blog or media source online not just by the quality of the research and writing, but by the engagement of the readers in the form of comments, discussion and social bookmarks and ‘retweets’.

Looking forward to your views and comments…

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