A poll mentioned in EYE on January 6 found that buyers and tenants had some frustrations with agents.
Inaccurate property details a frustration for almost three in ten
However, worth noting from that survey is that it seems almost half of agents (46%) are getting it right, or at the very least the buyers and tenants canvassed had reasonable expectations.
One of the difficulties in a digital age is setting those expectations correctly – particularly for vendors.
If you believe some of the puff being pedalled currently, sellers might think they barely have to pay any fees at all and that their property will sell for over the asking price in a few days. Anyone basing service expectations on some of the advertised figures is likely to have a serious come-down at some point.
There has been some fantastic work going on from a small but determined section of our industry to bring clarity to some of these claims, and it’s beholden on us to listen and do our best to make sure the public, particularly those who’ll actually use the service and pay our fees, get the message and judge us accordingly.
We’ve seen in the automotive sector the catastrophic effect that misdirection in advertising has caused, and the effect it’s had on the protagonists.
The fact that some in the business are fudging their emissions somehow isn’t the point – it’s the fact that expectations of a certain German company’s cars have always been based on the impression of integrity. Image is the issue, not money.
I hope we can find a mechanism to get all this newly uncovered property data into a palatable form that can be presented to the property buying and renting public, who can then set their expectations accordingly – and vote with their feet if they are not met.
* Ed Mead was until last year a London agent, with Douglas & Gordon. He is now a director of outsourced viewing service www.Viewber.co.uk and an independent property consultant / commentator: ed-mead.com
Comments (4)
Well translated Mr Harvey!
In fairness to Ed, he is right, the industry needs to be united in conveying the message and stats effectively, which is not the case. This is mainly due to the majority of the industry comprising small competitive businesses, with the corporates left to spout their wisdom as they represent the many. What is worrying for the industry is that just under half the users of estate agency services feel we are getting it right…that’s not very good even allowing for clients having certain misplaced expectations. Until that happens, there is a case for the online execution only businesses, so even if they are not happy, it didn’t cost much. I was curious to see how other industries are fairing with internet no frills versus those who are best in class and used Trustpilot as their reviews have been scrutinized here recently. Airlines was the area I looked at. Premium companies like BA, American, Virgin versus Ryanair and Easyjet. I hope you understand my reasoning for this choice. BA and American put themselves forward as the best in class and gain 1.6 and 2.6 which is poor, the true class act being Emirates at 4.5 (still poor). Virgin with its clever image and past owner still only achieves 2.6 and Ryanair and Easyjet get 2.2 and 1.8. This proves that upset someone and they will tell everyone (!!!) the happy people will stay quiet, but you have to go a long way to stand out and until you do, people will go for cheap to get the same end result in their mind. Here endeth the lesson
For those of you are confused by this, allow me to try my hand at a rewrite…
People’s expectations of their property are being led astray by some agents – though we must give due kudos to the majority who are doing it properly. This could be in terms of fees, valuations, communication lines or other services they offer.
Alas, we live in a world where the internet sets unreasonable expectations; we expect the agent to offer the world, and then deliver it. But this isn’t the case. When they don’t deliver (as they can’t), reputations get hit. Look at the VW emissions scandal, their reputation has gone down due to their misleading statements and figures. Agents run the same risk if they continue patronising the punters.
We need to find a way to get the message across to bad agents – if you keep muddying waters, everyone gets hurt. By educating agents on good practices they will only have themselves to blame if they keep screwing up and lose customers to other agents.
Is it me at 6.30am in the morning trying to read this or are these articles getting harder to understand. It’s too convoluted Ed.
7.21…..me too…..not sure what point is trying to be made.