A new twist on touting – agent offers to refund vendors’ upfront fees to online firms

We are sure this cannot be unique – but perhaps the way they are doing it is.

RedDoor Homes, in Rochester, Kent, has a special offer running until the end of August.

It is available to anyone whose home is on the market with an online agent.

The offer invites vendors who are not getting “the attention you want or the offers you deserve, then come and list your property with us”.

If RedDoor Homes sells the property, it will deduct the vendor’s upfront fee paid to the online agent from its commission: “So essentially we’re offering you a refund on the money you’ve already spent.”

RedDoor Homes is specifically targeting stock on the market with Purplebricks.

Canvassing 20 properties currently, it is posting out a video brochure, complete with a pre-paid envelope to send it back if the vendor does not want to take up the offer.

It has caused some lively interest on social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/hp/update/6276052765689016320

And this is the video the firm is sending out. EYE would be very interested to know what your special offers are.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8h00gYaRyU

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4 Comments

  1. cyberduck46

    It will be interesting to see if they sell any of the properties. They must be charging a lot if they can afford to reduce by £850.

     

    If it works out the approach for consumers would be give the online agents a try and if they sell save thousands and if the don’t pay what they would have if they’d gone straight to the agent.

     

     

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    1. AgentV

      There is no point consumers trying ‘online listing first and then moving to full service independent later’ as a deliberate strategy. If you don’t sell reasonably quickly in a good market area you risk severely damaging your overall end result and losing thousands off your final sale price.

      You will have missed out on the initial surge of interest from the right target audience and this can often generate the best offer achievable, typically in the first three weeks.

      Far better to start from the off with an FSI whose main aim is to achieve the very best sale price for you.

      However if you have gone with an online lister and failed to sell, what RedDoor Homes are doing should be a welcome offer.

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      1. PeeBee

        AgentV

        What you’re saying won’t sit comfortably with ducky…

        …it doesn’t add value to – or otherwise benefit – his ‘investment’.

        So prepare for your post to be described as “somewhat disingenious”.

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  2. smile please

    It is a great idea.

    We have been doing this ourselves for last 12 months, Had a pretty good take up on it. To be fair our standard fee is circa 4k so we can drop 1k for the right property.

    I have not used the video mailers which i think are a terrific idea. I will have to look into them.

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