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So, what is it that a property owner actually wants from their estate or letting agent?
I was speaking with someone the other day who had worked at Purplebricks for 2 years. His experience from being there was that property owners DIDN’T want to use an online agent, they actually wanted to use a traditional estate agent, they just didn’t want to pay through the nose for it.
Jayne Dowle, who was kind enough to mention Proper Local a few weeks back in The Times, published this blog Money for old rope: take care when choosing an estate agent in The Spectator recently.
Jayne picks up on some interesting points.
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So, it would seem that I’m not the only person who is considering the question.
Only yesterday Jayne Dowle wrote the article “What it really costs to sell a property” in The Times. Jayne was kind enough to interview me earlier in the week on the subject of estate agents’ fees. We all have to acknowledge that estate agents’ fees make up a large part of moving costs, second only to stamp duty on the next purchase.
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So, in my last post What Is The Future Of Estate Agency? Part 1 I posed the rather valid question:
“Selling a four bedroom £2,000,000 house is not four times more expensive for an estate agent than selling a one bedroom £500,000 flat. So why is the fee four times higher?”
Can I be honest with you? I’ve been struggling with that question ever since I started in estate agency, over 10 years ago.
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So, undoubtedly, the world of estate agency is changing.
But.
How much has it really changed?
I find it easiest to picture it as a spectrum.
At one end we have the traditional (I’m not saying old-fashioned) estate agency, with their (increasingly nicer) offices on a High Street near you. They pride themselves, rightly, on their local knowledge. It’s a no sale, no fee promise. Fees are charged as a percentage of the sale or rental price achieved. They will be there for you all the way through the transaction, from initial valuation, through sale progression, to the day you handover the keys.
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- Wapping’s geographical area is defined by its borders with The Highway to the north, Limehouse to the east, St Katherine’s Dock to the west, and the Thames to the south. We suggest you don’t do too much experimentation with crossing the border to the south… you’ll get a bit wet!
- The name ‘Wapping’ was first recorded c.1220 and may have derived from words meaning ‘the settlement of Wæppa’s people’. Alternatively, it may have meant ‘marshy place’, via a connection with the Old English word wapol.
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New developments spring up all the time, but its not often that you witness a community being built. Ballymore & Ecoworld’s London City Island is just that – a new community. Comprising 1,706 apartments, completing from mid 2016 all the way through to 2019, the scheme will also result in a new home for English National Ballet, 1,801 sqm of leisure space, 4,502 sqm for offices, 1,852 sqm of retail and 2,714 for the creative industry.
London City Island, or LCI for short, is designed around a mini-Manhattan concept according to the developer’s brochure, and having visited, both internally and externally, we believe that this concept has been executed. Although the buildings are undoubtedly ‘new’, there are nods to that warehouse-loft feel. Flat-fronted buildings with large windows, much higher-than-average ceiling height, strip wood flooring, Victorian-style radiators and butler sinks all combine to give a rather rustic impression.
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We thought you might be interested to know that we recently let a three bedroom apartment. We completely appreciate that’s perhaps not that interesting in itself (it is what estate agents do!), but we did manage to make some people happy in the process.
Our landlord was happy because we let the property very quickly and charged him a fixed fee. He saved hundreds of pounds compared to the fees that he would have paid to the other agents who were marketing the property. He also thought our communication throughout the process was “great”, and even said that we provided the “best service I have ever received from an estate agency”.
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Hi there, Frank here… I’m back!
I’ve been off-grid for a couple of weeks because I got myself into a little bit of trouble.
I’ll tell you what happened in a bit.
Because I was naughty you might have noticed that my owners replaced me on the blog with some graffiti of another dog, which isn’t particularly nice for me, but hey-ho. That graffiti is actually quite famous and its on the side of a building near Chrisp Street Market in Poplar. It was painted by artists Irony & Boe who have also painted other animals across London.
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It’s no secret that I love East London. And my adoration doesn’t just involve writing about the breath-taking views. A little bit of country is good for the soul … and that’s what (surprisingly) you’ll be in the middle of if you visit Mudchute Park & Farm on the Isle of Dogs.
If you’re looking for something to do on a Sunday afternoon, like me last Sunday, get your wellies on head down to Mudchute - it is honestly a fantastic place to visit.
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Frank was a very naughty boy, so we replaced him (temporarily...)
