I’ve read with interest in EYE how some estate agents are having to take responsibility for parts of their property ‘chain’ that belong to other agents.
This is because the other agent hasn’t collected the appropriate information about their buyer and seller or can’t be contacted for it.
These stories seem to involve the more budget, online-orientated agents, and although I can’t comment on specific situations I can offer a remedy … although you’re not going to like it.
Not new!
This situation is far from new. I remember it being prevalent when I first started as an estate agent 30 years ago which was of course before the internet. A few agents would do all the running around while other agents in the chain sat back doing very little.
It was my experience, though, that this wasn’t laziness on the ‘absent’ agents’ part. It was their lack of a property education. They just didn’t know what to do. They had no idea who to talk to about qualifying a chain and progressing the sale. Even if a few of them did, they were clueless about what questions to ask.
I don’t want to be a hypocrite. All of us started our property careers knowing very little. However, what seems to be lost on some agents is a willingness to learn how the necessary processes work to reach a successful exchange and completion.
I’m not suggesting this is easy to grasp. Far from it. It requires three distinct skills:
- a knowledge of the estate agency and conveyancing processes involved.
- the instinct to know when something is ‘wrong’ in a chain – ‘something just doesn’t feel right’ perhaps because of information supplied, discovered or just the way someone in the chain has ‘said something’. Those of you who have this instinct will know what I’m talking about.
- how to deal with problems when they occur. Problems in a chain, even seemingly overwhelming ones can often be resolved. It just takes a little creativity, good negotiations skills, keeping a cool head and perseverance.
Mastering these three skills will separate the mediocre estate agent from the highly effective one. So why wouldn’t anyone want to master them? But it seems some don’t.
The solution
I promised a solution to the problem of ineffective agents in a property chain. But I also promised you wouldn’t like it and I always keep my promises. So here it is.
If you have the skills to progress property sales in a ‘chain’, then you have no choice but to use them. It doesn’t matter whether it’s your part of the ‘chain’ or not because each sale is reliant on the next.
I don’t want to get ‘preachy’ here but we all know that ultimately we have a duty of care to our client to ensure their transaction goes through. And that relies on every other sale in the chain going through.
I know this seems unfair; others will benefit from your skills at no cost to themselves. And it’s not lost on me that the most galling part of all of this is that those ‘agents’ who win instructions by charging little may also be those who tend to do the least amount of work. But what is the alternative? To leave an agent floundering in the ‘chain’ and risk it falling apart?
The best we can do in these circumstances, as professional estate agents is
- keep our client happy by ensuring that the chain of properties exchange
- ask our buyer and seller to recommend us to friends and family
- spread the word about those who didn’t work hard for their commission (whether they were agents on the high street, hybrid or online).
Two final thoughts just to end things on a real low note. Firstly, as we all live in the real world I’ve avoided wasting time discussing the idea of charging others in the chain for our ‘sales chasing’. Not going to happen.
And lastly, a personal request from me. Anyone calling themselves an estate agent should be able to progress a sale. This is a core service and skill, not an add-on. Can’t offer this service? No problem, but you need to find yourself a different job title. You’re not an estate agent.
Suggestions?
Comments (16)
I can certainly empathise with this. As solicitors we frequently have to do the work that the other solicitor ought to be doing. We also warn our clients at the start how slow it’s going to be if certain other solicitors are on the other side of the transaction. We encourage them to speak to the seller/ buyer if necessary to get the thing moving.
It’s also quite uplifting when we are dealing with agents who do understand the conveyancing process. It leads to far less telephone calls. It also stops the wheels coming off. There is one agent near us who nearly manages to lose her sales by her bizarre interference and suggestions. Her firm have no idea how many times we have saved the day for her.
Chains, can I ask you to please train your junior staff. Having a young kid ring us up with threatening and rude demands because they clearly don’t understand the process does nothing to help anyone. Having their friend who sits next to them ring and ask the same damn questions thirty minutes later really hacks us off and I’m being very polite here.
We have job-swop days with local firms of solicitors where we ask a junior member of our team to work with a conveyancer for a half day or day and, that a conveyancer spends a similar time in our office (usually giving a brief training talk on an aspect of conveyancing at the morning meeting as well). Both sides get to understand the process from the others perspective, it helps educate less experienced staff and, builds great working relationships between fellow professionals. It sounds as though your agent might benefit from such an exchange.
Boys and Girls, please, what happened to showing your fellow est. agent some respect and at least for the early part let them look after their own part of the chain and if they don’t or can’t then jump in.
All you need is the details of each agent etc in the chain but you liase with the link nearest you (sorry, I really dont mean to patronise here) up and down, once you discover that they aren’t doing their bit then you bypass them because you want the chain to ex/comp and get paid but there are also the agents (uasually those with no haart) that hurt things by doing your job as well thus p””sing off the solicitor who doesn’t want to keep reporting twice so come on corps, STOP IT!!
I have read all the above with interest. There are many frustrations in our world that are out of our control, but we just have to manage them as best as we can in order to achieve a positive outcome. As someone who manages a team of sales progressors, they are encouraged to use their imagination, skills and experience to work around the problem rather than spend time worrying about who they come up against in a chain. We have more control over the progress of a chain, whoever is or is not doing what they should, than for example, sales negotiators have over a buyer simply changing their mind.
Of course, technically, (nerd voice on) no agent should talk to anyone else in the chain without specific written authority of the people involved as it breaches the Data Protection Act (dons tin hat).
Dear Mr Jagor. Jager ?
Anyways (sorry I wasn’t paying attention) the point is almost correct when you say you have to progress a sale even parts of the chain that aren’t yours.
But
As you are an estate agent ? (You are ?)
the bigger part is the sales proceedability (I like this word, MS word doesn’t though) When you qualify the buyer and therefore the chain going backwards and forwards there are two ends. The top and the bottom.
if these are closed then you have a sale that can move forward and if you make sure top and bottom are aware of each other with name and phone number and email then you have already saved yourself a huge amount of work, Why?
Because only the bottom can push the sale forward and only the top can pull it along, everyone else is just along for the ride.
So what if you have a chain of 4 properties, the conveyancing on the top and bottom properties are all but ready, but someone in the middle is dragging their heels?
Then you focus your energy on the middle section or look to break the chain.
Simples innit ?
Chain of just four properties.
Try 16 !!
That’s why you need top and bottom talking to each other
I get that, but that’s not just focusing on the top and bottom is it?
I’m just saying it’s not as easy as that. A decent agent will be involved with all parts of the chain.
If you have 16 properties in a chain. to speak to everyone in it would take a whole day.
If you have the top and bottom talking to each other and you focus on your immediate sales attached it’s about all you can do realistically.
The reason why a sale can fall apart is because the top and the bottom don’t know where each are at, this helps massively if they know each others position and focuses the agents efforts on the weakest link.
There are plenty of words that describe this article. But I have a very special one.
Whats yours?
No **** Sherlock …After reading such a detailed article I have come out of it with precisely nothing that I didn’t know. I’m not even sure who its directed at? A trainee perhaps?
Lucky you, nextchapter. Clearly only having to deal with other agents who know their stuff. Meanwhile, out here in the real world, some of us are having to deal with muppets who might actually benefit from reading this article.
That is such a patronising article. Write something that we all don’t know about.
With some people knowing so little and some people knowing so much it is almost impossible to write an article which no one knows about!