In many sales and service industries a common question that always justifies both asking and answering is, “Why should we choose you?“.
Whether you are an Indian Restaurant, an independent Butcher or simply a Charity shop on the local high street , the question and the answers should be the same.
Every business needs to show it’s customer’s the difference. And that difference needs to be worth it.
A fascinating study undertaken by the home service group The Advisory, has presented some fascinating figures that go somewhere close to revealing what we thought, but couldn’t be certain of.
If higher fees are charged by a local “high street” Estate Agent, then why are they charged and what does the client receive “that is worth it”? If you order a Chicken Saagwala why is it better in one restaurant than another? Is it just the taste or could it be the taste, the ambience of the restaurant and the service you receive? If the price is £5.00 more in the preferred restaurant, this could be as much as 35% or even 50% more than the competition, but you judge that it’s worth it.
The average fee in the UK sits currently at 1.18% with the highest found in London, Sunderland, Manchester and Birmingham all surpassing this average. The lowest average fees the UK sit currently in both Edinburgh and Hull at just under 0.9%.
In Kenilworth as an example, the fees, with competition being so strong, still have to remain immensely competitive. So whatever the fee, stop and look at it closely. Look not just at the fee itself but what you actually receive for that fee. 1% from one agent can be very different in the quality received to 1% from another.
Judge these fees (only payable when results are achieved and therefore forcing the agent to prove their worth!), against paying in advance for lesser “service” and the online threat is purely a perception. The same report states that 95.3% of sellers make the decision to use a high street agent and Rightmove and Zoopla both support this.
What the online “threat” has done, rather than actually sell houses, is bolster the service delivery of the good agents whilst the ones with nothing to offer simply continue to reduce and reduce.
In short, during the last 3 years and as a national statistic, estate agents fees have reduced by 34% but the quality of the professional high street agent has improved. That’s what “Online and In Advance Payments For Nothing” have done to the industry. That’s what we thought we knew and thanks to this independent research, we do now.
Mark Walmsley, Director, Elizabeth Davenport
