May 2008
Welcome to the future!
Sir,
I USUALLY read Paul Smith’s scripts with the salt pot in hand as he blurts
out the corporate rants of a CEO like some property world version of Alan Sugar.
However, I do wholeheartedly concur with his call last month for estate agents
to kick newspapers into touch.
I would go further to say that any property portals owned by newspapers should
also be boycotted — because if they systematically get you by the unmentionables,
then the industry will once again become beholden to them and they will start
to screw us all to the deck again, while they allow services to deteriorate and
under-invest in technology.
In 31 years, I spent hundreds of thousands of pounds with my local newspaper.
Their service deteriorated through that period, their rates were hiked regularly
and when they became part of the Newsquest Group, they simply became appalling.
At the end of 2007, I had a new website built to now be able to offer virtual
tours, quality enlarging imagery, floorplans, fully downloadable A3/A4 brochures
etc and acquired a bright red Mini Cooper emblazoned with my new style.
I have paid for all of this within a fraction of the amount I was budgeting to
throw at Newsquest for the same old stereotypical rag they throw together each
week. It used to take us half a day correcting the advert for spelling mistakes!
I was the first in my area to kick newspaper advertising into touch. My instruction
levels are well up throughout this difficult
period in the property market. I also moved out of town centre offices at the
end of a lease period and my new computer systems allow me to run my business
from home.
Over 90 per cent of my vendors have e-mail and I can feed them with online activity
for their property as it happens.
My sales have remained constant and I actually have more time to concentrate
on what vendors want from us – TIME, EFFORT and FEEDBACK.
I also now have time to consult to an IT company which is in the process of establishing
a network of NAEA member estate agents running their businesses from home. I
have proved it to be both possible and profitable.
As high street estate agents either feel the pinch or hit the wall altogether.
there is going to be a tremendous niche for experienced people to work from home
spending on affordable IT solutions.
It’s also what the increasingly computer-savvy public want — rather
than being charged extortionate fees by some overhead-loaded high street dinosaur
grimly hanging on to the dark ages and throwing disproportionate amounts of money
at American-owned newspaper has-beens!
This is my fourth decade in estate agency and I think it’s going to be
my most rewarding.
I feel well up for the challenges ahead and have put my business in a position
to survive the oncoming slaughter.
Assisting with the development of a networked home-based agency is now the Holy
Grail. However, the thing that has recently given me the most satisfaction was
giving the God-forsaken Newsquest Group the middle finger salute!
Getting back into a Mini Cooper again after 30 years isn’t bad either — it
corners better than my old V6 gas guzzler.
JAMES WHITEHEAD,
Blackburn.
|
