Why agents need to do more to promote value for money

06 July 2017 5720 Views

The fees charged by estate agents receive a lot of coverage in the press - and rarely for positive reasons. Negative publicity affects agents' reputation and despite the vast majority of firms carrying out admirable work on a daily basis, our industry still struggles with misrepresentation in the media.

A recent report brought this issue sharply back into focus. Research by Post Office Money and the Centre for Economic and Business Research claims that average estate agent fees have increased by over 30% in the last decade - from £3,279 in 2006 to £4,310 in 2016.

As we know, a traditional agency commission fee varies depending on the price of the sale. What's more, the widely reported average fee of 1.5% is not regularly achieved in many parts of the country.

Therefore, an average fee of over £4,000 is well at odds with what the typical agency achieves most of the time. Add inflation to the mix and agents' fees have barely increased at all.

When there is information like this widely reported on without any context - the public are likely to believe it if they are not told otherwise and this can be damaging to an agent's business in the long-term.

With this in mind, agents need to make sure that their marketing campaigns focus on promoting the correct information to the public. Fees will always be an important part of the selection process for vendors and so it's important that they understand exactly what they're getting for their money and that what they're getting is actually fantastic value for money.

Another aspect to focus on in customer service. The majority of agents provide a comprehensive and dedicated service - this is something that shouldn't be underestimated. If you educate prospective vendors on all the things they'll be getting for just 1-2% of the purchase price, they're likely to come around to an agent's way of thinking!

Here at Gnomen, we provide cloud-based software and beautiful websites for estate and letting agents. We take customer service very seriously and pride ourselves on the relationships we’ve built with our clients and you can see what they had to say about us here.

To get a better idea of what we offer, you can book a free demo with us today.       

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Montana Hassan, Business Development Manager at Gnomen Ltd.