I’m writing this quick blog on the back of someone saying to me.
“There’s nothing I can’t do that an estate agent can.”
And it got me thinking.
This person wasn’t an estate agent, but they may have a point. I mean, we’re not sending rockets into space. We’re not Formula 1 drivers or top-level athletes.
Once my ego had pulled itself together after being mortally wounded by such comments, I started to think.
I’m not going to rattle off 7000 things, but my initial thoughts were:
- It costs a fortune to run an estate agency, and managing a buyer database is time-consuming and difficult. Without an agent, you don’t have this, and there just isn’t a way around it.
- Negotiating money will be awful. Most people are useless at it anyway, but a very savvy buyer will run rings round you.
- Do you really want to show people round your house? I wouldn’t.
My brain was going and going with this, but the conclusion I came to is that there is no sexy answer. No silver bullet. No one immediate thing we do that makes all the difference.
But the truth is that there will be 700 decisions a client has to make throughout this process and they all add up to their chances of success or failure. My job and what I’m good at is helping people make good decisions, even in the face of enormous stress.
I have to admit that I’m a total nerd for this industry. I love the psychology, the way the market moves, the nuances of different people and how they react to things. The pricing. The sales strategy.
Even after 15 years I still genuinely love helping people navigate this crazy process more than ever. It’s tough, it’s stressful, it’s difficult but so enormously rewarding.
