You’ve made a decision to sell your home. Now you have two questions which need answering:
How much is my property worth?
Who’s going to sell it for me?
At that point, you need more information
Historically, Real Estate Agents were the gatekeepers to this information market. What has sold recently in your neighbourhood. The price that was achieved. The number of viewings that took place before a buyer was found. How that buyer was found.
Much of this information has become freely available, digitally and from increasingly reliable sources. This knowledge is invaluable when answering question one.
Although, you also need to answer question two. Here, knowledge is less useful than something else. Belief.
I need a Real Estate Agent is not a commonly held belief. I have to use one is more prevalent.
Because most Real Estate Agents will tell you the same thing. That they’re eminently more qualified than any of the others.
However the way in which we market properties is simpler than ever before. Anyone with the ability to list on Rightmove or Zoopla has access to thousands of qualified buyers who are already showing intent. In 2017 Rightmove was recording 14m unique monthly visitors, and I doubt that number has fallen since.
Of course, there are other channels. There are databases of qualified buyers, there’s digital marketing and social media. None of which are anywhere close to breaking the dominance of the property portals.
So ultimately it comes down to something else. How much do I trust the person sitting in front of me to help me achieve my goals. Are they willing to be accountable, to listen to what I’m saying and to tell me the truth.
It would be great if more people believed that they needed Real Estate Agents. However to make that change we as an industry need to believe that our customers deserve better.
Things I’ve been paying attention to, watching or reading this week
A great podcast with the co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight on branding, marketing and how to sell without selling. Listen to it here.
Great branding is about identity – and it’s about matchmaking too. No one knows this better than the legendary co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight. When he and his partner, Hall of Fame track coach Bill Bowerman, started the sneaker company, they never tried to force-feed customers a product just to drive up the bottom line. They focused on one thing: making an excellent product for people who believed in the Nike ethos.
And on the back of that, Nike’s groundbreaking 1987 advert. A tour de force.