Excellent advice on how to choose an agent in America shows up useless, patronising UK advice.
What’s harder than an agent winning an instruction?
A seller choosing the right agent first time. Which is why more than half of UK home sellers have to change agents before they actually sell.
The “how to choose an estate agent” advice on offer from all the UK sites we found is frankly useless and, worse still, patronising.
Useless UK advice on choosing an agent in summary
Their vanilla advice can all be summed up in three phrases:
- “Ask for recommendations”. Wow, gold dust.
- “Pick three agents to invite in to value your home”. Yes ok, but which three? And why three? Why not 2 or 4 or 5?
- “Don’t choose on valuation alone.” Genius.
If there are 15 agents to choose from, how is a first time seller supposed to have a clue which three to choose? The one with the most boards isn’t necessarily the one who will sell your home. Neither is the one your friend recommends because their friend works there. Even the ones with great reviews may not sell your home first time, and we all know that agents with the shiniest marketing can sometimes be hiding the most weaknesses.
With such literally useless advice on offer from consumer sites, is it any wonder that so many vendors choose the wrong agent first time and have to change?
American advice on choosing an estate agent is how we should be advising home sellers.
Digging deeper, the following article appeared on Forbes, the US business magazine website, and it’s the best impartial advice I have seen yet on how to choose an agent. It’s insightful, it is full of unexpectedly valuable tips. It speaks to the nuances of agency, and highlights the importance of intangible factors. It really is a superb list of tips, without a single useless cliché.
Why do we in the UK get this so wrong?
Below is the Forbes article. Read and enjoy, and hopefully be inspired.
