Estate agents are being urged to make the most out of their sales pipelines by generating extra revenue from cross-selling complementary homebuying services.
Babek Ismayil, founder of OneDome, a challenger portal, believes that estate agencies should offset lower activity in the coming months by maximising the revenue per property sold.
He says this can be achieved by generating extra revenue from complementary homebuying services, including mortgages and conveyancing.
Ismayil also points out that technology could greatly assist agents in capturing leads, qualifying and nurturing them, streamlining the processes and automatically cross-selling various homemoving services.
Ismayil commented: “After a very strong summer, during which some agents may have been overwhelmed by the workload, the question now is how can they get the most out of their pipelines as the market slows down?
“Some of the big corporate agencies and larger independents make an additional 40p for every £1 earned in commission through additional homemoving services. Of course, it’s easier for the larger agencies as they have teams dedicated to additional revenue generation, but this is part of the moving process that all agencies should be targeting.”
The best agents have been adopting this approach for years in all market conditions. Of course technology plays its part in flagging up opportunities, but it is human beings who convert them into business. Training staff to make successful referrals to trusted mortgage advisers and conveyancers is essential, more so for the fact that it facilitates sales progression, improves client and customer communication and service levels and ultimately massively increases the chances of sales going the distance, than for the direct commission the referrals might earn. Passing clients and customers to the right advisers and conveyancers also leads to more repeat business and recommendations, thereby protecting an estate agent’s future. The best time for agents to identify all these advantages and train their staff to maximise referral opportunities would have been 20 or 30 years ago. The second best time would be today.
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Would agents like to earn an extra 1 – 2% on every sale?
Yes?
1, Act as a buying agent and charge 1%
2, Stop sharing your clients with mortgage brokers, employ your own mortgage broker. Proc fees, admin fees and cross sales easily adds another 1%
Both very simple but can net you an extra 10k per sale. (And you do not line the pockets of portals like OneDome)
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Act as a buying agent and charge 1%
Who is your client – the vendor or the purchaser?
It should be illegal to act for both on the same transaction
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How often do you sell a vendor on of your own properties? 1/10?
9 other chances to help their search and negotiate effectively for them saving them thousands.
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Hi smile please, Local (conveyancing or mortgage) relationships are a very effective way to do business and good agents build strong “networks” of local suppliers with whom they have long standing relationships. In fact, property transactions tend to be faster and smoother when homebuyer uses agent’s recommended conveyancers or mortgage brokers. Having an agent owned mortgage business is a great way to enhance the revenue if it is done well and right. OneDome’s Homebuying platform helps to enhance that relationship (not to replace it) by automating cross selling and customer nurturing. The platform helps your customers by providing them with a step by step guide on property purchase and automating things like Mortgage in Principle, quote generation from conveyancing firms, client nurturing and advising. As an agent you have an ability to bring your own conveyancer and adviser to the platform, so it is supplier agnostic.
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When referred fees are banned your argument really falls flat.
Given boomin does more, is far better funded, what is the point of Onedome?
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Referral fee ban would be a bad decision for the industry and every agent I am sure thinks about the impact on their business. The transparency of referral fees is very important and our platform offers that transparency to the customer. I cannot comment on Boomin or their offering as I don’t have details. Make your own judgement and decision on that one. I can assure you that we are well funded (just raised a new funding round) and we are producing results (currently up to 80 leads per month) and that is the only thing that matters.
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You and i may not want referral fees banned but its coming.
To be honest so many third parties trying to leach our priceless data for pennies i am not wholly against the ban. I will miss the solicitor kick backs but we will plug that hole.
FS is where i make good money not sharing my data. Any agent that does not is frankly behind the times and could easily add another 25 – 50% on their turnover, if done correctly.
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Hi Babek,
Why would anyone want to introduce you into an already established referral chain knowing that your business model is to take fees from referrals ? Asking us to invite the solicitors’ we do business with to your platform is akin to inviting a shark to come swimming with you
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Hi Slinky, We don’t take money from referrals. What we provide you is a software for you to manage that relationship more effectively and grow the conversion rates. That software also nurtures the customers who don’t just convert instantly.It also provides you with ways to manage that network as well which is currently done via emails/ excel spreasheets.
The software helps to facilitate the transaction by bringing all parties into a single collaborative environment and making the homebuying process smoother by educating consumers, providing them with action lists with an aim to speed the process. The latest version of the platform will also work on specific SLAs and assist sales progressors in chasing various parts of the transaction and update the systems automatically. Software isn’t here to replace anything, it is built to make things more efficient.
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“That software also nurtures the customers who don’t just convert instantly” – Form which you derive a fee … a referral fee if you like ?
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Your own terms and conditions say youll transfer my customer to a wholly owned subsidiary of yours …. no thanks
Transfer to OneDome Financial Services
21.8 At an appropriate point in their journey through the Mortgage Passport, a User will be invited to engage with OneDome Financial Services. Should they choose to do so, their interactions with OneDome Financial Services from that point will be governed by OneDome Financial Services’s terms and conditions of use and privacy policy and not Our (these) terms and conditions of use or Our privacy policy that will govern the limited introducer relationship.
21.9 Any data, including personal data held by Us that is required by OneDome Financial Services to facilitate Your use of their services will be handles and (as required) transferred in accordance with GDPR and Our privacy policy.
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HI Slinky,
You are looking at the website T&C, not the software product which is governed by Software as a Service (SAS) agreement. This is separate from the service we provide on our website.
I can confirm that the leads will be directed to the firm that you work with which by the way could be OneDome’s financial arm or any other MAB AR business if you don’t have your own recommended firm.
In terms of our fees, we don’t charge for any conveyancing conversion, we generate revenue by selling additional services to conveyancer which doesn’t cost you any money. In terms of mortgages we charge a small fee per conversion.
Hope this clarifies.
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nurturing emails are part of the software product, there is no separate arrangement for it.
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Targetting and compelling staff to sell ‘product’ (be it conveyancing, finance, removals etc) is a sure fire way to undermine what should be their prime focus – effective estate agency. Pull and push them in too many directions at once and they won’t do anything very well.
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Absolute rubbish. Getting agents to build rapport with potential buyers and getting them to buy into the associated services is training them to be good agents rather than robotic order takers. It is no coincidence that the success of promoting financial services mirrors success as estate agents
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Wow – none one ever thought of that innovative idea before 🙂
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The big corporates have been doing this for years and even in the case of Countrywide with their dismal technology have been very successful
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Everyone knows EA’s are supposed to cross sell but rarely do they do it consistently and effectively. This is because most EA’s are reactive and spend their time dealing with the here and now. This is an industry problem and one that can be easily overcome. There are businesses out there that do this for you making sure all opportunities are maximised.
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