For the best part of a decade, our industry has focused on winning instructions and keeping sellers happy. The next few years, however, may well belong to those agents who are best at looking after buyers.
Looking at the data for May, Zoopla reported that buyer demand is down 10% year-on-year, while Rightmove says buyer choice is at its highest point since 2015.
Which means that buyers are negotiating harder, offering less and, if they don’t get the answer they want, are prepared to move on to the next property.
For much of the last decade, stock was the scarce commodity. Today, it’s the committed buyers who are.
Yet our industry is still largely geared around sellers. Buyers are often treated as portal leads, emails and viewing appointments rather than what they have become in many markets: the scarcest commodity in the transaction.
For years, agents have focused on winning instructions because sellers pay the fee. But an instruction without a buyer quickly becomes a price reduction.
The agents who prosper won’t be the ones waiting for Rightmove enquiries to arrive. They’ll be the ones speaking to buyers every day, understanding exactly what they’re looking for, what they’ll compromise on and what they’re prepared to pay. If that means knocking on doors or sending letters because you’ve got a buyer waiting, then that’s what good agency looks like.
I also think we’re about to discover the limits of AI. It can tell you what’s happened in your market. It can’t tell you which buyer will stretch another £20,000, which seller will become realistic next month or which homeowner might move because you’ve got the perfect applicant waiting. That’s where experience, relationships and local market knowledge still matter.
The other change we need to make is around information. Buyers are becoming more cautious and more price-sensitive. The industry should stop waiting for government intervention and start embracing pre-pack information now. The more legal information, survey information and repair costs we can put in front of buyers upfront, the more confidence they’ll have to proceed.
My dad always likened estate agency to supermarkets. The supermarket with the biggest range attracts the most customers. The same applies today. The agent with the most choice for buyers will increasingly be the agent that wins.
This is the biggest market reset we’ve seen for years. Not because transactions will stop, but because the balance of power has shifted.
For a decade, the agent with the instructions won.
The next few years may belong to the agent with the buyers.
Comments (3)
Hard disagree on much of this. Buyers are not going to offer because you’re nice to them, or because they “respect your experience”. They know you don’t work for them and aren’t interested in being lied to – and they assume everything you say is a lie. Sitting around waiting for Rightmove leads to arrive? Since when has that been the smart move? There’s literally no market where that’s a winning strategy vs a strong competitor. Knocking on doors and appealing to specific sellable properties has been the correct move since the 90s.
The agent that wins will be the one who continues to do everything they’ve always needed to do: find the most valuation opportunities, win them, and manage the prices to a reasonable level. This market is proving that correctly priced properties get snapped up, so call your vendors and get their prices down. If they won’t instruct at a sensible level, bin them off and find one who will. Sitting there on a big pile of unsellable overpriced stock is death. The “balance of power” may be with the buyer, but until they pay you a fee you focus on your clients.
Agreed on pre-sale information, but how are you going to get your clients to pay upfront for these things? The stuff that actually matters takes weeks to acquire from councils and managing agents, and costs cash. No seller is going to do that unless legally forced to. And repair costs/survey information? No buyer is going to trust a survey paid for by a seller, so every penny spent on that is wasted.
how are you going to get your clients to pay upfront for these things? The stuff that actually matters takes weeks to acquire from councils and managing agents, and costs cash. No seller is going to do that unless legally forced to. And repair costs/survey information? No buyer is going to trust a survey paid for by a seller, so every penny spent on that is wasted.
100% correct
Which is what people like Rob Hailstone are unable to comprehend
In Scotland, sellers are legally required to have a Home Report carried out before marketing a property, and it must be made available free of charge to interested buyers.
The cost will vary depending on the size, value and type of property, but surveyors typically charge in the region of £400–£800.
When Home Reports were introduced in 2008, there was certainly some grumbling across the industry, mainly due to the additional upfront cost, the timing in the middle of the financial crash, and concerns that it might discourage more speculative sellers from coming to market.
However, the process was adopted fairly quickly and is now simply viewed as a normal part of selling a property in Scotland.