Why BestAgent Day will be a 25 year turning point.
25 years ago, estate agency fees were DOUBLE what they are today.
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
