Because judging by most agents’ feeds, you’d never know it happened.
Sir Keir Starmer announced he’s standing down as prime minister last week. Andy Burnham’s the likely replacement. You’d think, given the size of that story, every agent’s feed would be full of takes on what it means for rates, for confidence, for the next six months of the market.
Mostly, it wasn’t.
And that’s a problem. Most agents have a perfectly good opinion on what something like that means to their market. They just don’t say it, because having an opinion feels riskier than staying quiet. But that instinct is wrong, and it’s costing the industry more than it realises.
The problem with most agency content isn’t volume (well, for some it is), it’s that it doesn’t say anything. It’s safe, it’s polished, it could have come from any agent in any town, and because of that it doesn’t do the one job content’s actually for: making someone trust you for being you.
Having a real opinion means some people won’t like it. That’s not a flaw, it’s the point. The agent who says “here’s what this actually means for buyers in this town” will lose some people who disagree, and be remembered by the ones who didn’t. Trying to please everyone isn’t a strategy, it’s a way of being forgettable to everyone. Being the right voice for the right group is what builds the relationships that actually pay off.
Lat month, the government published its roadmap for digitalising the home buying and selling process. You already know the detail, you don’t need it from me. What you might not know is how it landed outside the industry. I caught a morning show “expert” reacting with outrage at the idea that earlier binding agreements might mean real financial consequences for pulling out of a sale. They clearly had no idea how badly our conveyancing process underperforms compared to almost anywhere else, and yet there they were, presented to the public as the expert.
And there is the lesson, that we all need to take responsibility for. We assume the consumer already knows what we know. They don’t. And if nobody from inside the industry claims that space, someone outside it will, and they’ll get it wrong, confidently, on television, in front of your next client.
So, when something happens that people are genuinely curious about, whatever it is, don’t wait to see what everyone else says first. Have a view. Tell people what it actually means for someone trying to move house in your town. You’ll lose a few people doing that. You’ll also become the one a much smaller, much more valuable group actually trusts enough to call.
Somebody’s opinion is going to fill that space anyway, it might as well be yours.
Ben Madden is founder of Digital Sparks and chair of Fine & Country NAC.
