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Charlie says...
thoughts on
Contemporary Estate
Agency
and what to look out for….
Contemporary estate agency
utilises cutting edge software, highly developed websites,
powerful portals with endless functionality, mobile apps, email and text alerts, virtual tours, land registry
data analysis - the list goes on.
Every conceivable technological advancement has been applied to the industry. Many such developments
are very convenient and create instant gratification for prospective buyers and tenants. For agents
technological features can create individual USP’s and distinction and no doubt the race for the next
gizmo will go on and on ad infinitum.
However, surprisingly, it hasn’t actually changed
the way houses are marketed, bought and sold.
Yes it has sped up some of the marketing elements
and added huge convenience, any agent worth
their salt will of course embrace that, but no
fundamental change has occurred. The reality is
the process hasn’t really changed for hundreds of
years, in brief; an owner obtains the advice from
local estate agents and subsequently chooses the
one they feel most comfortable with. The agent
then promotes the property to potential buyers,
arranges viewings, negotiates offers and sees the
sale through to completion. This is how houses
were bought and sold in Dickensian times. So even
with this astonishing array of technology no change
has actually been made to the underlying process.
Another interesting observation is the development
of cyber agents. Some web based agents have
multi-million pound TV and media advertising
campaigns or the backing of celebrity personalities,
luxuries well beyond even the most successful
regional agent. Combined with this profile they
charge a fraction of the price of much of the
competition. So given this seemingly powerful
combination of massive national publicity and
undercutting prices, they should surely have
complete dominance and majority market share in
all of their operating areas….however they don’t.
Their impact has been generally insignificant.
So what is the correlation between these
observations, to recap: All the technology in the
world hasn’t actually changed any of the principle
functions of the estate agent and web based agency
with monumental advertising budgets, combined
with the lowest fees available, has had little impact.