# Estate agents



## shane_ctr (Dec 17, 2006)

Hi,

I own an estate agency business in Ipswich & Stowmarket. The idea of the business was to bring the prices down to sell you house but still offer a very high level of service, typical prices in ipswich are 1.5% - 2.0% We charge only 0.75% as you will imagine we have stormed the market and with 18 months have taken the Ipswich market by storm.

We opened the new office in Stowmarket office Jan 2015 so its very early days the fee here is 0.65% as a launch fee the problem we have is the other agents in the area have dropped fees doing special offers (I believe this will all be short term) to hold us back, Im going to remove the fee from any of the marketing we do and go with a new idea. The idea is we will pay you to sell your home. So not only will we do a cheap fee but will give you money, if you call us and book a valutation you will get a £20 gift card from a choice of 4 places. If you decided to sign up with us that day you will get a post dated check for £100. The seller will need to have a board up and also complete the length of the contract, hence the post dated cheque, I know we will get some people just doing it to get the cash with no intention of selling but we see it as boards make more boards.

I need some ideas for a punch line for this and would like to hear your ideas.

i.e

We pay you to sell your home, call us for more details.


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## S63 (Jan 5, 2007)

I admire anyone thinking of innovative ideas to boost business but having dealt with a few EAs over the years I'm always looking for the one that provides the best service, not always the cheapest. So I want to see a strap line that says "we're the best forget the rest" type of message, but there again there are folk that want the lowest price and as this forum shows, giveaways can prove hugely attractive, I'll put my thinking cap on.:thumb:


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## shane_ctr (Dec 17, 2006)

That's just it some people will say your to cheap for the services you offer. You up you price then you loose the people who look for price, in Ipswich I would say we have it spot on we take on 40/50 houses per month and sell 35/40 on average.

In Stowmarket we can not get in the door, I belive this is due to other agents dropping fees as knew we would be opening. The doors we have got in have always signed them up. So this is the idea of paying to get in the door as we feel by doing this we have a good chance of signing the house up


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## GleemSpray (Jan 26, 2014)

How about "we aren't the cheapest, but our professional negotiators WILL bring buyers and sellers together" 

Also, drop the gift voucher and money back schemes; honesty if I saw it i wouldn't use you as it smacks of desperation. 

Just my thoughts.


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## S63 (Jan 5, 2007)

Just the fact your agency is an independent would put you high up my list when choosing an EA, I have some chain EAs in my area, one of which is run by ArunEstates, their service is often awful with many negative testimonials.

So I would trade heavily on that fact, you are already offering a free EPC which many don't. If you're better than the rest I'd hope the news would finally open those doors closed at this moment in time.


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## shane_ctr (Dec 17, 2006)

Yes as i say the level of service we other is more than most, we have a team of 3 sales progresses who work closely once your house has sold until completion, only one other agent in the area offers this service, we offer floor plans on all properties again most agents do this on propeties over 350k. We offer HD videos and a big one for me is we have offices with car parks so you can deal with people face to face. We just need an idea for Stowmarket to get us in the door.


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## shane_ctr (Dec 17, 2006)

some pics of the new Stowmarket office. (Still need to stone the driveway and paint brick work)

Stowmarket Office





Ipswich Office


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## WP-UK (Apr 24, 2011)

Firstly, good luck with the new office, I'm sure it will go great. You seem to have a great business model, your website and offices look really professional, I expect you're very proud. 

Be wary of the gift incentive. A large agency opened a new office near where I work last year, they charged 0% for their first 250 instructions and entered each client in a raffle for a new BMW. Someone who worked there at the time (now works with me) said they had so many of the (wrong) clients instructing, they became swamped under and couldn't do anything proactive. Once majority of them came off the market months later after not selling, they started trading normally with a fee similar to the other agents, and have now become quite successful, just with a delayed start.

Hope all goes well!


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## davies20 (Feb 22, 2009)

The two don't go together.

I love the brand you've created (I'm big into my branding) and I think coming up with this scheme you've thought of just ruins it, cheap & nasty was my first thought!

Not meant to be rude BTW, I really like your brand, look classy & professional . Smart people will choose you!


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## Alfa male (Jun 16, 2009)

Not sure if this is helpful or not sorry. 

I've not long sold my old house but used an online ea, I found this much better for me as I know my house best and felt I could sell it well. 

The big bonus was the flat sale fee of £500 which included the energy certificate and for sale board. They had long opening hours with live people at the end of the phone to book viewings negotiate prices etc. 

For me these offers may appear a bit tacky and would scare me off it was the plain simple flat price pricing that won my custom.


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## mattsbmw (Jul 20, 2008)

Alfa male said:


> Not sure if this is helpful or not sorry.
> 
> I've not long sold my old house but used an online ea, I found this much better for me as I know my house best and felt I could sell it well.
> 
> ...


Very interesting  a mate of mine has just set up an online agency.

Back to the OP - for me the cash back deals are just a gimick and wouldn't encourage my custom.


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## Juke_Fan (Jul 12, 2014)

shane_ctr said:


> If you decided to sign up with us that day you will get a post dated check for £100. The seller will need to have a board up and also complete the length of the contract, hence the post dated cheque


I believe post dated cheques are only advisory in the UK and you can still pay them in and draw on them before the date.

"In the United Kingdom, post-dating a cheque carries no legal weight and so such a cheque can be cashed before the due date. However, a bank may refuse to honour a cheque if the post-date is noticed; otherwise, the payer has no right to take any form of legal action against the bank for letting the cheque be processed"


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## tiyim (10 mo ago)

it's a great idea.
I’d like to build/host a pro-bono or at-cost site for a real estate broker friend who’s come upon hard times. (Yes, it happens even to people in that profession). He’s an older guy and by no means a tech maven, but he’s not an idiot either. He should be able to master something with a reasonably intuitive UI.

I don’t know much about the real estate industry, so I plan to use something already out there as a framework, either FOSS (preferred) or commercial (if worth the money). My scripting language of choice is PHP and the site will be hosted on a CentOS 7 (for the time being) LAMP setup running Virtualmin.

At a minimum, my friend needs to be able to list properties and accept contact requests, of course. I’ve asked him to think about other things he’d like the site to do. I suppose some sort of CRM-like functionality to follow up on leads would also be desirable, in addition to whatever my friend think of. My scripting language of choice is PHP.

I’ve been casually browsing the kuavo and I notice some WordPress plugins that claim to be tailored to real estate agencies. Though not an expert by any means, I have a passing acquaintance with WP; so a plug-in for that platform would be easiest for me to implement and help maintain.

Because I know nothing about the real estate agency business, however, I’m reaching out for advice from anyone who hosts real estate agency sites. If there’s something out there that’s much better than a WP plugin, and intuitive enough for my friend to master, I’d appreciate a heads up.


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## RS3 (Mar 5, 2018)

Why do Estate agents charge a % of the value of the house?.

Surely the costs of selling a house in Barnsley is the same as a similar sized house in Belgravia.

I would rather use a company that charges a flat fee, only tiered by house size (takes longer to show around a bigger house) to cover their costs.

Fixed fees are more transparent and I agree with Gleemspray regarding cashback and gifts etc, which seem like DFS type tactics.


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## muzzer (Feb 13, 2011)

Please do not link to outside websites, the rules are quite clear.


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## Darlofan (Nov 24, 2010)

7 yrs old this thread, wonder how the OP's budiness is doing?


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