How to Sell your House! part 1

Hi,
There is a mass of information and advice out there in the mainstream and social media about how to choose an estate agent and how to get that perfect buyer to fall in love with your home.

Most of it is basic common sense or a relatively short step on from it.
And of course, because it’s fairly obvious stuff, 80% of this information is right.
However, a lot of this information is looking at the detail and ignores or takes for the granted the key fundamentals.

There are also some things that get trotted out with which I take issue in 2014, e.g. you won’t sell without professional photos.

This is a series of blogs which takes you through my personal view of what’s important to buyers and therefore what you should be doing to attract them. It’s a sensible, practical guide, not marketing speak. Enjoy!

Steve Cass, Director, Cass Properties

 

 

Part 1
THE THREE FUNDAMENTALS

BUYERS BUY LOCATION, LIVING SPACE AND PRICE – NOTHING ELSE

 

You can help them to see the benefits of buying YOUR home (as opposed to someone else’s) with presentational changes but in the end they buy the right combination for them of LOCATION, LIVING SPACE AND PRICE

1) Location, Location, Location - it’s a long-standing maxim but it’s right – location is vitally important and it’s important on THREE different levels:

High level Is the house within x minutes walk/drive or train journey to work/school or whatever’s important to them and their family?

Medium Is it in a nice part of town/a nice village? Neighbours appear OK? (No rusting cars, rotting windows, etc) Road noise?/On flight path? Flood-plain/building development plans nearby? Mains water, sewerage? Gas or Oil? Broadband speed? Mobile phone signal? Drive/garage/scope for extension? Is there green space/playground near for the kids?

Low Level Does it have some private garden? Does the private garden face south or west for evening sun and relaxation? What’s the view like? Are we overlooked? Does it have enough shade or too much? Shop/pub in walking distance?

Now,some of these may be of no importance to the next potential buyer to look at your house on the internet and the truth is that you can’t do much about these things anyway!!

BUT

you should expect your agent to vet all enquiries with these issues in mind.

Agents should anticipate buyer questions, anticipate objections and have a more positive spin ready if they are voiced. Test the agent out with any obvious objections that occurred to you when you bought it or that have occurred to you since!
Are they on the ball and quick-witted? Or was there hesitation? Or worse, is it obvious they hadn’t even thought about it?

(Next time – Living Space)

Estate & Lettings Agents that truly benefit their clients

Estate and Lettings Agency – the Third Way

As far as members of the public are concerned, there are only two models of estate and lettings agency.
The traditional & expensive model with a shop on the High Street or the new online agent, doing everything remotely and charging peanuts.

But there is a third business model which is taking hold in some areas and that’s the Home Agent.
Basically, the Home Agent works from an office in their home or garden thus reducing their running costs by around 50% (or more) compared to the traditional High Street agent. But because they are local, they can give the same local accessible service that a High Street agent can give.
The reduced running costs are passed on to their clients. Hence a win-win scenario:

Professional, local & face-to-face service but at a much reduced price

 

Pre-internet, there were only three ways to advertise a house for sale or rent.
a) the agent’s shop window;
b) the local newspaper;
c) the For Sale/To Let board

So to get the detailed information about a house, you had to go into the agent’s shop and get a copy of the printed details.
Now, ALL of this detailed information is available in a few clicks via property portals such as Rightmove.co.uk. And it seems that almost 90% of buyers and tenants first find out about that dream property in this way.

So, in 2014, the extensive use of the internet, social media, smart-phones and cloud technology mean that the High Street shop and its equally outdated accomplices, the printed details and the newspaper advert, no longer have much to do with selling or renting your property. The internet now rules!
Yes, they’re a great brand advert for the agent but why should their clients – remember them? Yes, they’re the ones who pay – why should they have to pay huge fees at least half of which are to cover the running costs of the shop, printed details and newspaper ads?

It’s so last century!!

So Sellers and Landlords, ‘Move with the times’! Stop paying for stuff you don’t need anymore. Seek out a Home Agent and give yourselves that win-win scenario: 'Online prices with High Street service'
Seek out Cass Properties - go on! You know you want to

Cass Properties - who are we and what are we trying to achieve for our clients?

Welcome!
Here's the video that my friends at Snap Media Productions shot for us when we started up in 2013.

Over coming weeks and months I intend to provide helpful an thought-provoking information on the property market for the area that we cover - Saffron Walden & a 10 miles around.

So please mark the blog sown for regular visits.
cheers
Steve Cass (MARLA)