Get Your Estate Agent Working On Your Case.
Ask them to supply you with details of comparable properties recently sold and for sale to help inform and justify their pricing.
Demand the estate agent knows in great detail about each and every applicant they bring to view your property. Your agent should know the upper limit of that applicant’s budget, if they have something to sell, are on the market, have sold or are just out for a weekend nosing around other people’s homes.
More than 90 per cent of property searches start online, so stunning photographs of your property are vital. Your agent should attend the photo shoot and to guide the photographer and ensure the right photos are taken. Many agents don’t bother, some may decide to take the photographs themselves, on a mobile phone. This is just not acceptable, ever.
Get your agent to prepare floor plans, plus, if there is a garden, a site plan showing the orientation and full measurement of the area. Some agents may say they shun floor plans to preserve an irresistible air of mystery about the property in an attempt to increase viewing requests, this is rubbish and so demand it.
The key is to have your property advertised across various different media, rather than relying solely on website property searches. Demand that your agent advertises your property in a newspaper or magazine, with a postcard mailout and an email newsletter to prospective buyers all of which should see the website click-through rates pick up over the next few days.
Your estate agent should know more about social media than you do, with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter as the main ones, but also LinkedIn is a very valuable tool. They should be able to tell you what kind of social media would be most suited to promoting your property and provide evidence in the form of research and statistics.
It’s a basic requirement for your agent to accompany all viewings. Agree on a viewing protocol, either by appointment with notice or within set parameters, say Tuesday and Thursday between 10 am and 3 pm or any day between 10 am and 12 pm.”
Demand the agent to make you aware of all offers, regardless of how insulting they may be, you would be surprised how many offers don't get given to the seller to consider. Demand your agent do some negotiation. Just passing on the offer and asking if you’d like to accept is not good enough.
A good estate agent will not abandon you once you have accepted an offer. There is often a period of delays and frustrations, which an agent should anticipate and plan for — especially as 800 transactions a day collapse, according to the HomeOwners Alliance.
Expect the agent to stay in touch with you and you should ensure that the agent makes sure that key milestones such as the booking of a mortgage valuation and survey are being met. Ideally, your agent should conduct due diligence on the other side’s team, including their solicitors, from the outset.
Ensure that your agent has vetted which solicitor the buyer is using in advance of the memorandum of the sale being issued. If they are not up to scratch, halt the transaction until they change firms.
So now you have the agent on your side, working hard for you. Why not get in touch and let me work hard for you, helping you get the very best mortgage deal that is right for you. CLICK TO CONTACT ME
See also my guide to getting a mortgage, its so good you will be able to do it yourself. CLICK HERE FOR MORTGAGE GUIDE
