Property buying agent and pundit Henry Pryor has hit out at agents who he says simply list rather than actively market properties.
In a blog, he says: “Ever since the dawn of the net, I have implored agents to maintain their mailing lists or they will end up as glorified listing agents.
“They will cease to be marketeers and become an eBay-like business collecting interest from adverts and processing a sale – something that online agents do very efficiently.”
Why is Pryor so cross? Because, he says, Savills appears to have decided to become a listing business.
Despite being on their mailing list for such properties, Pryor says that Savills launched a £30m property via an article in the Telegraph.
It was, says Pryor, “a great article which makes them and their joint agents Knight Frank look very good, but which they decided not to alert their hot buyers to first. Knight Frank emailed me the details two days later. Savills three days after that.”
Pryor says it was not an isolated incident, with Savills launching Hackwood Park, near Basingstoke, Hampshire, with what he believes to be a price tag of £80m.
Incidentally, the Mail thinks the asking price is in the region of £65m.
Savills’ details actually say price on application, and describe the property with an address as the upmarket town of Alton. As it’s not very far from the EYE office, we can say with local knowledge that it is on the doorstep of the altogether grittier Basingstoke, as the postcode shows.
The mansion, also on with Sotheby’s Realty, has 24 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms and 260 acres. We think this is probably 29 more bathrooms than when a curious EYE went to look round it at a previous sale.
But back to the point: Pryor says he does not know why Savills did not alert buying agents and potential buyers first.
He asks: “Is it because, like so many other agents, they have forgotten that they are paid a lot of money to sell a home rather than just to list it and process the resulting interest?”
Savills declined to comment on Pryor’s blog
Hackwood Park ‘at Alton’ – an upmarket town in Jane Austen country
Hackwood Park – and behind it, the loveliness on its doorstep that is Basingstoke
Comments (9)
Surely if we are informing buying agents first this is only another form of letting a portal or another person doing the work for you, hp you have this one wrong I’m afraid.
Cant say i agree with HP all the time, and i do not agree entirely with his comments above but he does hit on a good point that many estate agents are becoming just listers.
If we want to keep or industry we must offer a greater service in marketing, sales, service and negotiation otherwise the public may as well go with an online only lister.
Isn’t that what all web portals are, reactive listers?
A purchaser through a’buying agent’ will have to pay a fee to that agent. As a result two fees have to come out of the transaction which reduces the amount available to the seller. If Henry’s clients buy direct without his fee, they could afford to offer maybe one or two percent more.
Buying agents are meant to reduce the price for their client so they are not hot buyers but grot buyers and most agents prefer to deal direct with the buyer so they can use their selling skills, building empathy and making it easier for the buyer to feel comfortable about buying rather than isolated behind their own agent.
I think the agents did the right thing to launch in the media to stimulate interest so their details are more likely to be read when they are mailed out. It is also a good way to make sure joint agents work together by holding back their marketing until after the impact of a media launch.
I guess Henry is just upset that it is harder to get a fee as a buying agent if your client has already got the property in his shopping basket. Tough luck Henry, but marketing property isn’t all about you is it.
Best price from widest possible marketing and instructions create new instructions. Do we all hit the Rightmove / portal button a bit too quickly? Our duty to find the best placed buyer at the best possible price – it’s what your vendor client wants, isn’t it?
Sorry, Mr Pryor – but why offer it first to those who want to chip it as much for their own benefit as their clients, when there are real buyers who will pay real money?
Unless, of course, it is only to set the bar for decent offers to follow…
coming from a failed estate agent…………………
I would have done exactly the same as Savills. Especially in the current top end market. Hope you’ve booked your viewing Henry. Don’t let being cross miss you the opportunity of buying it
I feel that Mr Pryor’s blog might be less about estate agents becoming redundant, rather search agents losing the ‘special relationship’ for which they charge a premium.