We finally exchanged contracts today on a sale that we’ve poured many hours into.

It all started many months ago.  The sellers (or client) responded to a leaflet that we distributed locally.

At the time of the call the sellers had already had a couple of established agents value their property, which they had spent many hours of sweat (and money) extending upwards, outwards and generally improving.

Marketing Price (This needs to be right)

We were more than a little surprised when the owners explained that the other two agents had valued their property at over well over £500,000.  We researched the market, looked at sales data in the surrounding roads and we simply couldn’t find could any information support these valuations.

We didn’t think for second we’d win the instruction, though we still explained in detail why we thought the value of their property was a whole £75,000 less than the ‘more established agents’ had assessed its value at.

To our complete surprise, they both believed us and our research.  1-0 to the small guys!  Property instructed.

Quality of marketing (This should be professional, not resemble photos taken on a drunken night out!)

Don’t scrimp and save on the photos.  It shocks to the core at times when checking out other agents marketing on Rightmove.  Even more disturbing is that some of the agents are pretty established and very expensive too.

Examples:

Super outside shot

Lovely Garden too

Get the angles right

Staging – Good advice is to de-clutter and de-personalise, so box up the family photo’s and keep the small kitchen appliances in the cupboards.

Work hard once the offer is received (this is a market where you have to work for your money)

It turns out even our valuation was a little too ‘adventurous’ for the buyers surveyor. Disappointingly he decided to lower it further.

Now we had to convince the buyer that the property was worth the agreed price and the fact that the property was just so perfect for his family meant we could manage to do this.

We were patient.  Before this buyer came along we already had received other offers, yet in the best interests of our seller we decided to keep the property on the market as something, maybe instinct, urged us to. Maybe it was fate, but we then found our perfect buyer.  Cue happy customers.

Recommendations

As a growing business, we value our customers recommendations and referals and we actively ask for them too.

We’re now getting our clients to post a testimonial here (we just discovered the website, and its handy for attracting new business).  We also ask if our customers will be happy to offer a reference to potential new customers.  In fact we have won some business just this week from exactly this kind of testimonial, which is simply brilliant and makes winning the business so much more enjoyable.