Transactions took half as long, and there were 70% more transactions in 2007 than in 2023.

Sole agency fees were 2%-2.5%, transaction times were typically 10-12 weeks, and there were more of them, making it easier for movers to find homes.

Since then, despite 25 years of industry events, there’s been non-stop decline in fees, deal volumes and times.

BestAgent Day marks the turning point when we get back to better agency, led by agents and other moving industry pioneers operating from a base of integrity.

I’ve called BestAgent Day the ‘greatest agency event yet’, said it will be ‘a turning point’ after 25 years of decline, of ever-lower fees and ever-slower transactions.

It’s not just sales guff; I really mean it.

There’s a special thread that joins all the guest speakers, all giving us their time for nothing; they all have something special in common:

They’re all striving for change.

Without change, we can only expect to see fees fall further, and deal delays worsen, both in our own businesses and as an industry.

This helps no one, especially not the moving public.

So how do we make the change?

That’s where, I hope, BestAgent comes in.

Our goal at BestAgent is to form a new, unbreakable alliance of businesses across the moving sector who operate with integrity as their central value.

What does that mean? In simple terms, it means always putting the customer’s interests before our own.

It sounds simple, so why hasn’t it happened? Something has prevented it from happening. What is it?

This is where we get into the substance of the talks on BestAgent Day: confronting the decades-old hard-wired habits afflicting most agents, brokers and conveyancers, and breaking them.

The first, and worst, habit is the monster we aim to slay on BestAgent Day: deliberately excessive overvaluing.

I’m not talking about the few extra percent that’s down to innocent over-optimism, but the 10, 15, even 20% deliberate excess that is often used as the oldest tactic in the book to trick sellers into signing their future away.

The worst thing is that this tried, tested and terrible tactic only serves to trash transaction volumes, sucking sales out of the pipeline for the rest of the industry.

At BestAgent, we have a plan, and a product built with the sole purpose of restoring fee levels, transaction times and volumes back to where they were decades ago.

70% more transactions, in half the time, at twice the average fees of today.

That product is built on transparency, which is the bedrock of trust.

Trust is what movers need, and they’re prepared to pay for it. They can’t currently identify truly trustworthy agents; that’s what we want to change.

If you’re an agent who welcomes the sound of this change, I hope BestAgent Day will be a turning point for you too, which you will look back on and say “That’s when we turned the corner and things began to get better, for everyone.”

If you haven’t already booked your free place, don’t miss it, book here: BestAgent Day 4th September 2024

The post Why BestAgent Day will be a 25 year turning point. appeared first on BestAgent.

2022 was when the 14-year honeymoon of cheap mortgages, stamp duty holidays and desperate buyers allowing agents to “make hay while the sun shines” screeched its tyres and smashed into a brick wall. It’s over, for good.

2023 is going to be a starkly different world for the moving industry, which will benefit the prepared. 

I’m an optimist, but not to the extent that I ignore the oncoming storm and pretend it isn’t happening.

No. As an optimist I take the opposite view. Being prepared for a storm makes me more optimistic about my chances of survival.

Fireproof overalls

That’s the purpose of this post: to share with you, estate agents of the UK, all of the best tactics and strategies I’ve encountered in 24 years working alongside agents of all kinds. This isn’t advice. This is sharing the observations of which agents I’ve seen outperform their competitors in previous downturns. The 1990s, and particularly 2008.

Dealmakers

2023 belongs to agents who are the best dealmakers. The agents who focus intensely, aggressively even, on only allowing their time to be spent talking to customers with the strongest motivation to move, and ignoring all the tyre-kicking time-wasters with equal intensity.

Let them waste the time of other, less focused agents.

The mistake inexperienced agents will make

As the cake of transaction volumes shrinks, as it most certainly will, the least experienced agents will make the mistake of continuing to focus most on winning instructions. Huge mistake. This will speed up their downfall as they end up with a portfolio of unsellable stock, and no proceedable buyers in their applicant box.

In a falling market, the agent with the most registered, proceedable buyers will be the ones winning the realistically saleable instructions, and doing the deals. 

Don’t take it from me. Here’s an agent veteran of several downturns

I haven’t walked the walk. But John Durrant has. He cut his teeth in agency as a junior in the 1970s downturn. He then started his own award-winning agency in the depths of the 90s downturn. So 2008 was a picnic for him. In this article he gives an in depth perspective of what agents need to understand to make the most of a falling market. Priceless advice from the horses mouth. 

Read his article here: https://bestagent.co.uk/john-durrant-advice-for-estate-agents-property-market-downturn/

Here’s a 5 minute video of the 5 tips I’ve picked up from the best agents 

Everything here is doable, if you decide to do it.

The golden survival rule if you are an agent who hasn’t been through a downturn before is to find a local mentor. It must be another agent who has been around long enough to share their direct experience of what a downturn is like in your local market. You won’t find better or more relevant advice for you and your agency than that.

Everything in John’s article and my 5 tips video is entirely within the reach of any agent who decides to do it. 

So, I hope you’ve found this useful and helpful, and that it helps give you a little more confidence to face the difficult market that 2023 will bring. 

So, here’s wishing you all the best for 2023 and remember, figure out what you need to change, and just do it!

Find me on LinkedIn if you have questions or would like any help. Best wishes Charlie Lamdin. 

The post Estate Agency Survival Tactics for 2023 appeared first on BestAgent.