November 2008
Be sure to make your advertising count...
...and stick like glue to your serious buyers, just like they do in the
States!
COMMENT by DAVID PERKINS
DESPITE the media obsession with the national housing market, there is, in
reality, no such animal.
The housing market is, and always has been, local. Any statistics based on totalling
the figures drawn from the myriad of local markets are therefore pretty spurious.
I am not suggesting the main trends are inaccurate but it is still like averaging
the birthdays of everyone present and arriving at June 25: it may be true but
so what?
However, people still believe what they hear on the national TV news – and
therein lies the problem. I am quite sure few of you operate in an area where
all the nationally-drawn conclusions actually apply.
When I started selling houses in central Oxford, we used to service fairly effectively
a local market.
It was roughly within a 20-mile radius, obviously not in all directions but people
used to commute to work in the city from that sort of distance.
Prices were cheaper further out into the country until one was in the area where
prices were influenced by another regional centre – Aylesbury, Cheltenham,
or Reading for example.
Whenever we checked, it was surprising just how many sales were made to people
living locally, sometimes very locally, with around half of our buyers already
living within a few miles of the property they bought.
Okay, some were moving a longer distance – I recall a period at our Abingdon
office when the UK Nuclear Research Establishment at Harwell was being established
and we had a spate of buyers from all corners of the Western World.
These guys radiated in the dark: they could split an atom three ways before breakfast
but had not got a clue how a mortgage worked!
Some were so brilliant, their thinking so esoteric, that it was far easier to
negotiate with their wives who were often more down-to-earth individuals.
That was obviously an exceptional period but it illustrates my point — each
housing market is local and largely depends upon local factors such as the employment
build-up in a certain sector or a sudden decline in another when a large factory
closes.
That was then, but the fact is today most estate agency offices still service
a very local market – virtually walking distance in many cases. National
trends matter but not that much unless you let them.
As briefly remarked last month, I believe this is more an attitude of mind than
a reflection of the marketplace.
I can remember a small town we effectively ran in for many years although operating
from several miles away and two floors up.
Quite recently I asked the present branch manager, now with a High Street frontage,
whether they had any success there these days.
“Oh no,” he said, “that is much too far away: we rarely sell
beyond the ring road!”
With respect, what rubbish! We used to service a far wider area from our second-floor
premises and people travel much further these days, not less!
Such attitudes need rethinking. If the existing staff say it cannot be done,
nobody new coming along even bothers to try.
I well recall one young negotiator who lived in a rural village – it was
all right but nothing exceptional apart from the local hostelry which offered
draught Guinness, then a real rarity.
However, he ‘sold’ that village so effectively that our Applicants’ Box
had a special section for cards endorsed with that village only and no other.
We made sales, although, amusingly, no other agents could sustain our valuations.
In two years, his efforts must have added 10 per cent or more to all its property
values.
I have previously mentioned how important local property market advertising has
been for local newspapers.
They have traditionally employed highly motivated space salespeople, with a policy
that once one estate agency was persuaded – I nearly said conned – into
taking a full-page spread, the rest would be easy prey and follow like sheep.
In our area, baa one.
This was another area where we had a unique approach. I never understood this
mania for full pages every week.
Why so many column inches – even if on a contract at a modest discount
to the rate card? The number of serious buyers about is not influenced by the
number of property pages.
If featuring an attractive four-bedroom house (say) failed to draw any enquiries,
that did not mean doubling the size of the advertisement: it simply meant there
were no serious buyers for that type of property currently in the market!
Fact: serious buyers read everything; time-wasters merely skim for things that ‘catch
their eye’.
I accept that some space salespeople can be a hard-skinned bunch. I remember
one young lady who rang me, cheerfully, at a set time each week only to be told
I was not interested.
Next week, same time, same cheery greeting, same response. I spoke increasingly
sharply but the next week she would be back. Gosh, she had guts!
Had somebody spoken to any of my staff like I started to speak to her I would
have been onto their line manager sharpish, complaining pretty strongly.
My feeble excuse for this unacceptable attitude was that I was trying to see
how far I had to go to stop her calling. I never did.
Intimidation
Would I have employed her? No chance – she was far too hard-bitten
for this industry where you need to empathise not intimidate.
That said, what is my rule of thumb for a good saleswoman? A recently divorced
schoolteacher – the more bitter the battle the better. They know how to
put things over simply but also how to get tough when necessary!
My point: our local paper would be constantly pestering us as the only agency
not to use its midweek property feature! But why should we?
As just remarked, the numbers who ‘must buy this week’ did not increase
pro-rata with the page count.
Enquiries may be slightly higher but these large display advertisements bring
in too many unnecessary, unwanted general enquiries.
Fortunately, our brilliant copywriter would have none of it. He would place a
few selected classifieds for us on a Tuesday or, maybe, a Thursday at a mere
fraction of the cost.
Since serious buyers scour the paper every night — where we might be the
only estate agency advertising anything — one small advertisement, poorly
printed, maybe set upside down and written in Chinese (joke), often kept the
phone going steadily.
What you do not need is a flood of applicants, just a few committed buyers and
time to look after them properly. And isn’t that exactly what you have
these days?
Most estate agents know that their display advertising was never cost-effective
but are frightened into the belief that other agents will point to the size of
their weekly spread, drawing disparaging comparisons.
So what, though? There are other ways to secure fresh instructions – one
being ‘property wanted’ advertising, always genuine and properly
backed up. The best is a spate of ‘sold’ boards, again genuine of
course.
While on this theme of avoiding timewasters and filtering out quality buyers – I
could never really understand the obsession with relocation companies.
In my experience, most people put off buying until the last moment and rarely
buy the first property they see.
Nothing is ideal so everyone buys the one with the least compromises for them.
Instinctively, they also wonder whether there is a better buy around which they
have not yet found!
In the last week, as pressure mounts, they will contact all the local estate
agents – even those more obscurely located, such as up two flights of stairs – just
to check that nothing new and ideal for them, has come onto the market since
their first sweep.
That is when you want to hear from them and, ideally, for the first time. Then
you make them welcome and work hard with what you have got.
If anything sounds a possibility get them into your car quickly and get out looking.
I have learned many things from various trips to the USA and visits to leading
realtors.
Not all was directly useful but one message from across the States was how to
react to any genuine serious buyer. In a nutshell, pack your toothbrush.
Put simply, you stick with them 24 hours a day until they sign on a dotted line
and buy something! I only exaggerate slightly.
Of course, the Americans start with one big advantage – almost universal
multi-listing. In other words any agent can sell any property.
They have no concept of sole agency as such – every instruction is automatically
a sole agency but the first thing they then do is tell all their fellow agents
about it.
If any of them has contact with a serious buyer they then take them there, and
fast.
Access is easy once a Key Box has gone up. The board contractor carries a stock
with him.
I have attended many amazing meetings with realtors but one that rates high was
in downtown Dallas where all the leading realtors met every day for a 7 am breakfast
and to swap news of the previous day’s property.
Each lister had 10 minutes to extol his — sorry, I mean ‘her’ — latest
instruction . At least 95 per cent of the listers were attractive females, and
do I mean attractive? Sarah Palin plus!
There were hairdressers in Dallas who opened at 5 am and closed again four hours
later.
They just opened for these women who each had a pre-booked slot to be groomed
and ‘dolled up’ for the day ahead.
Their complexion, and every hair on their head, had to be perfect.
Once the breakfast presentation was over, a fleet of minibuses was waiting outside
the restaurant ready to head off to different parts of the metroplex – up-market
Turtle Creek, Mesquite, or wherever – so the female lister could assess
for themselves any new property in their operational patch.
Each lister then presented their property to her colleagues, the sellers having
been sent packing.
This dedication was incredible — and so effective.
|
David
Perkins can be contacted 
